Woga Dimples's Arc

Chapter 5 of 3

The elder scribe's ink-stained fingers finally moved. He wrote Woga's name in the Grazing Scrolls. Then he set the pen down. "A name is not a claim," he said. "Prove the gilded warren is your bloodline's, or I strike this out." Woga had green patches and dead acres. He had no proof of family at all. He needed a record older than living memory. He went to the sealed stone library south of the rot-cleared routes. Shelves of books climbed high behind its iron door. Woga asked the keeper for warren deeds. A jackalope in a black suit and shades already stood at the records table. He tapped a cane on the stone floor. Woga had heard of him. Every jackalope had. He worked old claims deal by deal and never named who signed until the ink dried. "You're the one with the warren," Riddle me Zat said. He did not look up. "Dead ground. No proof." "How do you know that?" "I know every jackalope claim. Yours is new." He slid a folded paper across the table. "The original promise granted jackalopes land. Three territories. Your warren is listed. But the names of the gilded line were burned with the other copies." Woga's chest tightened. "Then I can't prove it." A silvery jackalope leaned against the far shelf. She had watched the whole exchange without a word. "You can," Kiira said. She stepped forward. "The scribe wants bloodline. Show him blood that answers the ground." "Meaning what?" Woga asked. "The glowing root map," she said. "The unicorn's reading. It shows which roots still live under the dead acres." She tapped Zat's paper. "Your warren's listing names a well. A living root runs from it. Only the true line's hand wakes that root. Foxes can't. Pretenders can't." She smiled, dry and sure. "I've seen the story. No one fakes it." Zat finally looked up. "She's right." He opened a book to a prism-colored chart of branching roots. "The well's root is here. Still alive. Bring the scribe to it. Touch it. If your blood is true, it answers." "And if it doesn't?" "Then you were never the line," Zat said flatly. "And I move to the next deal." Woga led the elder scribe to his dead warren the next morning. Kiira and Zat came behind. He knelt at the old well and pressed both paws to the cracked soil. He breathed, and he pushed down the fear. For a long moment nothing stirred. Then a single pale root rose through the dirt and curled around his wrist. Warmth ran up his arm. Green spread in a slow ring around the well. The scribe stared. He took out his pen. "The claim stands," he said. "The gilded warren is recorded to your bloodline." Woga's name would not be struck out. But Zat folded his paper and said, "The promise grants more than one warren. Someone else wants the same ground."