“Not at all, remember, I come from a little village, and practically everyone there is related to everyone else in some way,” Darian smiled. “I think I can keep it all straight.”
Now it was their turn to ask about Errold’s Grove, and his tiny, prosaic little village was at least moderately interesting for them - but what they really enjoyed was hearing about Valdemar in general. Some things he had to answer truthfully with the preface of “I’ve never seen this myself, but I’ve been told that - ” They seemed utterly amazed that people could live without any magic at all for hundreds of years, and were just as fascinated to hear what had taken the place of that magic.
“I feel sorry for people who have to live without weather control,” Summerdance sighed, as he described a four-day blizzard he and the team had endured. “Even though we had it, for a while we had to save the energy for things that were really important, and it was horrible. It was worse being in the Vale without weather protection! I don’t ever want to see snow on my ekele steps again!”
“I know how you feel,” Nightbird agreed. “I thought I would never get warm, the whole winter.”
“People are used to it,” he pointed out. “Not having seasons would seem strange to them. And there’s some enjoyment in it - Errold’s Grove used to have a Winter Faire with all sorts of special snow and ice games and sports, and I met some people who really love the snow. They’d be horrified if they had to do without it.”
“There’s something to be said for a good, rousing thunderstorm,” Nightbird agreed. “Especially when you’re snug inside.”
“Maybe - ” Summerdance sounded doubtful. “I still draw the line at snow, though.”
Darian yawned, covering his mouth hastily with his hand, but Summerdance was instantly all contrition.
“Oh, bother, here we’ve kept you up nattering at you, and you’re probably perishing fp get some sleep!” she exclaimed. “Look, just what kinc| of quarters do you like anyway?”
“Dark,” he said promptly. “No hammocks. I still haven’t gotten used to sleeping in anything that moves. But mostly as dark as possible; one thing I don’t suffer from is fear of being shut in.”
Summerdance glanced at Nightbird, who nodded. “I think I know just the place,” she said, “And no one’s taken it since the Kaled’a’in hertasi all dug their own burrows. Follow me.”
He did; she led him through the building complex - they were all linked together, apparently - to a long, low-ceilinged structure made up entirely of cozy, rounded sets of rooms. There wasn’t a straight line to be seen, and as Nightbird had promised, none of them showed any signs of occupation.
“These give most Hawkbrothers the shivers,” Nightbird told him, as Summerdance lingered just outside the complex. “Doesn’t bother me. White Gryphon is full of lairs and dens like this, and the hertasi and kyree prefer them. This place is actually dug right under the hill, so it’ll be quiet enough.”
“It’s not what I’d choose to live in permanently, but right now . . . this is perfect,” Darian told her with satisfaction. “I could sleep for a week in here.” Again, a huge yawn caught him quite off-guard. “Excuse me! And from the way I feel, I probably will sleep for a week! Do you know, they got us up and in the saddle way before dawn, and we didn’t stop even to eat. I’ve done harder riding on this trip, but nothing that was longer.”
“Better not sleep for a week, though, or you’ll miss the celebration,” Nightbird warned him, and then waved her hand in a shooing motion at him. “Go pick out a set of rooms, then, and I’ll tell the hertasi where you are. Rest well, Dar’ian.”
“And to you, and thanks.” He raised his voice a little so it would carry to the doorway. “Thank you, Summerdance! I hope I’ll see you both tomorrow!”
She laughed, and so did Nightbird. It seemed to be a common response for them. “Just try to avoid us!” Summerdance replied, and the two of them sauntered away, leaving him alone in the building.
He picked a single room at the back of the complex; it was simply furnished. There was a low bed with clean, folded bedding waiting on it, a single lantern on the floor beside the bed, and nothing else. However, the room did have a heavy curtain he could drop down across the entrance to shut out the light. There wasn’t much to shut out, just the two lanterns illuminating the “corridor” connecting all the rooms.
He took one of the dry splinters beside the lantern and got a flame from the lantern nearest “his” room, then lit his own lantern so that he could see to make up his bed. By the time he’d smoothed down the last of the covers, his baggage had appeared on the floor behind him. Hertasi, of course; by now he was used to the way they would make things “appear” and “disappear” in complete silence, including themselves. Those abilities had proved useful in more dangerous contexts, too; hertasi made wicked strike-and-run fighters, for all their small size. The packs looked shrunken; he had no doubt that they’d extracted his dirty laundry, and that by the time he woke up tomorrow, his clothing would be waiting just outside the curtain, cleaned and mended.
Havens, they‘ll probably have put together an entire new wardrobe for me by then, he thought, climbing into bed and stifling another yawn. Ayshen made more than a few remarks about that during our mission. What incredible creatures they are!
Then he blew out the lantern, closed his eyes, and never felt his head touch the pillow.
He woke slowly, and at his own pace - which was a bit more leisurely than he’d been,able to manage when he was with the team. He heard a second creature breathing in the room with him, and by the faint scent of raptor-musk knew that Kuari had found him after his bondbird’s own homecoming. Mindtouch told him that Kuari was deeply asleep and probably would not wake for another few candlemarks.
Which is hardly surprising, considering how hard he worked yesterday. It wasn’t the first time that Kuari had figured out where he was by Mindtouch, then made his way to his bondmate, walking if he had to.
Kuari definitely deserved his rest, and Darian had no intention of disturbing it.
What was it that the girls said about not sleeping a week? That l’d miss the celebration? He chuckled softly, as he had a pretty good notion just what that celebration was going to be about. Not the homecoming; any “celebrations” for that reason would be between and among families and friends. Although Tayledras enjoyed a good festival as much as anyone, successful completion of what was essentially a fairly simple job by Hawkbrother standards would not warrant a Vale-wide party.
But he certainly knew what did.
Starfall warned them, but they wouldn’t believe him.
Nightwind and Snowfire had given in to the inevitable two years ago and become formally mated, much to Kelvren’s delight - deciding that they would much rather have a small, intimate ceremony with the closely bonded team. Starfall, however, had warned them both that neither Snowfire’s parents nor Nightwind’s Kaled’a’in kin were going to be cheated of “their” celebration. He had told them that it would probably signal an excuse to turn out the entire Vale and they had scoffed at the very idea, but it sounded as if Starfall was right.
I bet the Elders even make the two of them pledge all over again! Well, maybe this time Snowfire wouldn’t be so nervous about the whole thing. He’d kept fretting that Nightwind would change her mind at the last moment. After being pledged for two years, by now he ought to be sure of her!
Darian stretched, and consulted his stomach, which informed him that getting breakfast wasn’t going to be an emergency. And for once, he wasn’t waking up with a kink in his neck or a rock imprint in the middle of his back. I think I am really going to enjoy living in a Vale for a while!
He got up quietly, pulling back the curtain just enough so that he could see to dress. And there, next to the curtain, were two evenly stacked piles of clothing; one of his old things, neatly mended, and another of entirely new garments, such as he would never have dared wear in Errold’s Grove. These were genuine Tayledras garments, not the scou
t clothing in relatively drab colors that they’d all worn in Vademar so as not to startle the natives or betray themselves to the monsters they were hunting.
Darian loved bright colors, and always had. Given a choice, he’d have dressed as gaudily as any mountebank, so he was absolutely delighted to see the second pile of clothing waiting for him. Without hesitation he chose a pair of loose breeches in a dark blue silk, a shirt in a lighter blue, a sash woven in blue and silver-gray, and a knee-length suede vest in a shade between that of the breeches and that of the shirt. Soft, low boots of black deerskin took the place of his riding boots, and he stepped out of the guest rooms and into what he now thought of as the Great Room feeling quite the Hawkbrother dandy.
There was no one there at the moment, so he took a little food with him and went in search of Starfall or Snowfire, munching as he walked. He soon realized, however, that his dress was quite conservative compared with some of his Tayledras kin. For one thing, he didn’t have a single bit of jewelry or so much as one feather braided into his hair - and for another, there wasn’t even a thin edging of embroidery to lys shirt and vest, much less the overall patterns of embroideries some of them sported.
On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t quite ready for all that finery -
Well, maybe just one or two feathers and a bit of trim.
There were two kinds of hertasi living in the Vale, as he well knew; the Tayledras, who were mostly shy and invisible, and the Kaled’a’in, who Were mostly very visible and quite outgoing. When he finally spotted one of the latter - one not in the middle of some other task, for interrupting it would have been very rude - he asked it where Starfall and Snowfire might be found. In that amazing communication all hertasi shared, as if they didn’t merely have Mindspeech but actually shared a single mind, it told him after a moment of contemplation that Snowfire was engaged in private business, but Starfall was available, and where to find him.
“Many thanks,” he told it, as it looked up its long snout at him, its big eyes much graver than Ayshen’s ever were. “And please thank the others for their care of my baggage and wardrobe last night. I really didn’t have anything suitable for the Vale.”
Now the little lizard-creature’s eyes took on a sparkle of merriment. “The things we brought will do for now” it said, deprecatingly, “but when we come to know you, we will have something truly suitable for you later.”
Then it trotted off; Darian knew better than to try to tell it that there was no need to go to any more trouble, because it wouldn’t listen. Hertasi were like adolescent girls when it came to clothing, but with largely better taste and much better execution. Nothing made them happier than to dress humans up, as if their charges were so many oversized dolls. Their nimble fingers fairly flew through embroidery, and what was most remarkable of all, they never had to trace a pattern on the cloth beforehand. They replicated their designs or the patterns that others gave them as perfectly as the original.
Perhaps giant dolls are what we are to them in a way, he thought with amusement. And dressing us up is their hobby. I have the feeling that I’m going to be turned into a Tayledras peacock whether I’m ready for it or not, especially if there’s a celebration coming.
He followed the hertasi’s instructions with care, though it was all too easy to be distracted here. Every turn in the path brought something new: a huge tree trunk with a spiraling stair; boughs loaded with ekele; a tiny, private pool; a miniature water-garden complete with waterfall, lilies, and a colorful fish or two; a sculpture in stone or wood; a living sculpture in plants and flowers. It was all wonderful, and every new sight brought with it the wish that Justyn could have been there to share it with him.
At last he reached his goal - Starfall’s ekele, which was not in one of the huge trees that supported several in its branches, but was situated in a tree of more modest proportions and had only Starfall’s dwelling in it. The base of the tree sheltered a garden planted entirely in flowers of the most subtle and delicate shades of white and the palest of pastels, with a stream and a cascade trickling through it. Starfall himself sat on a low stone bench, enjoying what was either a late breakfast or an early lunch, his falcon in the air above him, playing a game of “tag” with a smaller bird.
This was a game that Darian had seen before, especially between two very agile, swift flyers. Each bird had a streamer of paper attached to one bracelet; the object was to keep your opponent from snatching pieces of it. The bird that lost every bit of its streamer first was the one who lost the game.
Starfall waved Darian over as soon as he emerged from the cover around the path. Darian walked across a lawn of grass as plush as a carpet and as thick, and joined him as Starfall’s bird ripped off a bit of his opponent’s streamer with an outstretched talon.
“I won’t ask you what you think of our home; your eyes said it all last night,” Starfall said, offering Darian a plate of small, savory meat pies. Darian politely took one, but only nibbled at it. “I have got a question for you, though; do you want a few days to settle in, or do you want to get to work right away? You have a great deal to learn in the way of magic, and now that we are in the Vale, it will be much easier to teach you.”
“I’d like a few days first, sir,” Darian replied. “Though if I’m going to have more teachers than just you, I’d like to meet them informally and talk with them a little before we start. I wouldn’t - ” he hesitated, choosing his words with care. “I wouldn’t want to have anyone teaching me who didn’t approve of my being here.”
“Nor any conflicts with personality; that can be disastrous in the teaching of magic.” Starfall nodded. “I think that can be arranged without too much difficulty. I will not be your primary teacher; I have taught you all that I can. You’ll have three temporary teachers, and I can certainly arrange for you to meet with them first. Eventually, though, you are going to need a whole new kind of teacher to match your talents, and I am afraid that you are not going to have much choice on that score. You need to learn from a Healing Adept, and there are not very many of those available to teach you. Healing Adepts, when teaching in their own path, never take on more than one student at a time, and we will have to find one who has not got a student at the moment.”
Darian’s heart sank a little at that, but he resolved that he would manage to get along with whomever Starfall found for him, for it would be poor repayment for all that the Tayledras had done for him to quarrel with the teacher they assigned him.
“I actually have someone in mind,” Starfall went on, watching Darian closely. “And I think this might be the best possible combination of student and teacher if he’s free - but I won’t hear from him for a while.”
“In that case,” Darian said bravely, “I hope that he is free. I trust your judgment.”
In the meantime, his mind buzzed with questions. Just what was a Healing Adept? Was he going to be an Adept when he was finished with his learning? How hard was it to learn? Who was this person that Starfall spoke of with such caution? Wasn’t he in k’Vala Vale?
“In the meantime,” Starfall went on, “we will continue your lessons as best we can. One thing that you can do, even while you are settling in, is simply to observe. One day soon - certainly before the year is out - you will be returning to your new Vale near your old village; what you do with it in the beginning will set the character of the place for all time. You should begin thinking now and planning now, even though many of your plans will not come to fruition in your lifetime.”
Darian nodded, for he had already had some thoughts along those lines. “Yes, sir,” he answered. “Is there anything else I should do?”
“Only that you should get to know the folk about you - and if you see a way to make yourself useful - ” Starfall stopped, and smiled. “Well, I know you, and I know that I needn’t tell you that. Enjoy a bit of a holiday; I think we will resume your studies after the celebration, for if you are going to take a break before you begin, there is going to be no point in starting a
nything before then.”
Since those words were clearly a dismissal, Darian thanked him, and left him alone again.
But from the twinkle in Starfall’s eyes when he mentioned the “celebration,” it was obvious that Darian’s guess was right.
And just wait until Nightwind and Snowfirefind out!
Four
How can a ceremony be so solemn and so unrestrained at the same time? Darian wondered, though he made very certain that his thought was tightly under shield. It wouldn’t do for anyone to “hear” him; especially not now.
He’d been standing here for what seemed like half the day, though it couldn’t have been even half a candlemark. As Snowfire’s nearest junior male relative, he had found himself drafted for what he could only think of as a High Temple Ceremony, with every bit of ornamentation and trimming a notoriously ornamental people could fabricate for the occasion. He was right up in the center of the circular raised platform that had been erected yesterday in the dyheli meadow, that being the only cleared place big enough to hold everyone. He wasn’t alone, of course; he was one of the “wedding party” along with Snowfire and Nightwind, three k’Vala Elders, Nightbird, and six independent witnesses unrelated to either of the two being joined.
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