That day, after a round of children who’ d gotten bellyaches from eating too many half-ripe berries, she went out into the garden for some fresh mint. As she stooped to pick the pungent leaves, a strange shadow crossing the ground in front of her made her glance up.
It was a gryphon. It couldn’t be anything else.
It wasn’t alone either; there were more of them, carrying baskets suspended between pairs of them. She couldn’t make out what was in the baskets, they were too high, but there was no doubt of what they were.
Keisha stared at them until they vanished over the trees, tending vaguely upriver, where the Vale was alleged to be. She all but forgot the mint in her hands until they were gone, and she realized she had crushed it.
Eight
The news that a new invasion of barbarians had been sighted changed everything, turning what had been leisurely planning into a spate of frenzied activity. Gryphons carried basketloads of hertasi to the new Vale to get it ready in advance, as the rest of those who had volunteered or been specifically requested to populate the place packed up their belongings and prepared to make the move to their new home. By the time everyone arrived, there would be quarters waiting for them; somewhat more primitive quarters than they were used to, to be sure, but living spaces that could be improved upon and enlarged until they met the standards of those accustomed to living in a long-established Vale. After all, it wasn’t even Midsummer yet; there were three more moons of warm and sunny summer weather to go, and another couple of moons before things got uncomfortably cold. A Vale full of hertasi and humans working together would have fine living quarters put together long before then, and the only improvements after that would be cosmetic.
Darian alone of all of them didn’t have much to pack, so he was ready to go long before anyone else was. He tried to lend a hand to some of the others, but his help was always politely declined. That gave him time that he tried to fill as best he could, studying hard with Firefrost, working on further plans for his Vale, and (for a while, at least) spending as much time as he could spare from both those tasks with Summerdance.
He paid very close attention to his feelings about her and tried his best to decipher hers for him; he didn’t want to leave without her if what tied them together was closer than mere friendship. Their dalliance on the night of the wedding had been an entirely new set of experiences for him, and like a child with a new tooth, he felt as if he had to probe his feelings constantly to see what they were.
He might even have convinced himself that he and Summerdance were meant for each other as permanent partners, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she didn’t act any differently toward him than she did toward any other young man whose company she enjoyed. In fact, when it came to the company of young men, she was a great deal like the tiny blue butterflies that shared her use-name of Summerdance, going from flower to flower (or boy to boy) without spending very long with any of them. So, after careful consideration, he came to the somewhat reluctant conclusion that if a romance between himself and Snowfire’s cousin were ever to happen, it probably wouldn’t occur until after she got a new use-name - if then.
He consoled himself with their friendship and her very clear enjoyment of his company. If he was not to be her great love, at least he was still a love! No sooner had he come to that conclusion than he found that was just as glad that she didn’t have any special feelings for him because she kept introducing him to friends, who apparently wanted to give the “Valdemar Hawkbrother” a memorable send-off! Life was very interesting during that time, and he simply enjoyed his new-found popularity, knowing that when his special teacher arrived, he would have little, if any, time for a personal life.
For a time, it seemed as if the Hawkbrothers were never going to get themselves organized enough to make the move. Then, suddenly, everything was organized, packed up, and ready to go. The announcement came late one afternoon, taking him by complete surprise.
He had returned from a lesson with Firefrost, followed by dinner, and was about to change for a hot soak followed by bed, when his room was invaded by a swarm of hertasi. Before he knew what was happening, the hertasi were carrying off his belongings and double-checking to make certain nothing would be left behind. Then they vanished, leaving him alone with the single set of clothes he pried out of their eager, stubby talons. He got his soak, all right, but only because he had changed into one of the communal lounge robes - he didn’t have any other clothing left but what he needed for the next day! He soaked until he thought he was relaxed enough to sleep, returned to his room, laid out the set of his old scout gear that the hertasi had left him and fell into his bed for his last night in k’Vala as anything but a visitor.
The next day, he was awake before the hertasi came to fetch him, too excited to sleep anymore. He’d had dreams all night long about the new Vale and the journey to get there - and more ominous ones about his new teacher, who seemed to be a combination of Darkstone and everyone in Errold’s Grove who’d ever disapproved of him. He took his time over breakfast, once he realized that the sun wasn’t in the sky yet; it might be a while before he enjoyed the kinds of food available in k’Vala. Ayshen was going to be in charge of the hertasi there, though, so even if it wouldn’t be possible to replicate the feast-day delicacies of the wedding celebration, it would still be good food.
Finally a hertasi came to tell him that everyone was gathering to leave, and he mounted Tyrsell’s saddle for the first steps of the journey with the unsettled feeling that he wasn’t ready for all this.
What am I doing ? I’m not a leader. How am I going to take charge of a new Vale? Maybe I should change my mind - maybe I ought to be staying here -
But he shook off that momentary panic with self-derision; that was specious. He wasn’t going to be in charge for many years to come, not until Starfall, Nightwind, and Snowfire, the new Vale’s Elders, judged him ready to take his place with them. He had a lot to learn between then and now. They’d consult him, of course, especially on matters involving Errold’s Grove, Lord Breon, and Valdemar, and they’d involve him in discussions, but he wouldn’t be a leader for a long while.
Eventually I’ll go back to Errold’s Grove; I wonder how they’re going to react to me? He wasn’t a boy anymore. In fact, if his memory served him correctly, he’d be a match for most of the men in the village. He was a better fighter; he’d been taught to fight in every style from bare-handed to bow, and with the men who’d been trained to be the village Militia all dead, there was probably no one left in the village who had been taught to fight. Not of the original villagers, at least. According to the Tayledras who went there to trade, the village had grown considerably since he’d left.
Nevertheless, he was a warrior, and that ought to give him a certain cachet and respect.
You know, to a certain extent, I’m actually Lord Breon’s equal - or his son Val’s, anyway. Now that was certainly an intoxicating notion, but in the hierarchy of Valdemar, it was true. The new Vale would qualify as a lord’s holding, and he was the heir-apparent to the leadership position.
:I hate to interrupt your introspection,: Tyrsell said dryly in his mind, :But just about everyone has left. I’d wait until you were done with your mental soliloquy, but then I’d have to gallop to catch up, and I don’t believe you ‘d enjoy that.:
He came to himself with a start. Tyrsell was right, the last of the laden dyheli herd had lined up to pass through the entrance of the Vale, and it was time for the rear-guard - himself and Tyrsell - to get on their way.
:Uh - thanks,: he said with embarrassment, as Tyrsell took his place at the end of the line.: I promise, I won’t do any more woolgathering.:
:I should hope not,: the dyheli stag replied with dignity.
As he and Tyrsell passed through the Veil, Kuari dropped off the branch on which he had chosen to perch and winged silently past them, into the uncontrolled, mist-wreathed forest outside. At this time of the year, the first couple of candlemarks before and afte
r dawn brought floating streamers of mist up out of the ground to circle among the trunks until the heat of the day drove them off. There were no such mists inside the Vale of course, except on the rare occasions when the Elders decided that mist would make a pleasant “effect.” It was cooler out here, too, understandably damper, and the first thing he noticed when he came out through the Veil and took his place at the end of the group was the absence of flower scent. Flowers bloomed constantly in the Vale, day and night, regardless of season, but not out here. It was too late for spring flowers, which were all that bloomed in a heavy forest; spring was the only time that enough light reached the ground for blossoms, except in places where there were clearings. So the perfumes he had become accustomed to were replaced with the metallic tang of fog, the earthy taste of decaying leaves and needles, and the faint musk of the dyheli.
Tyrsell led a new herd, much bigger than the previous one, composed of his original core and most of the adolescent and young adult dyheli from the other herds of k’Vala. This gave some much-needed population relief to the k’Vala home-herds, and a much-needed outlet for the youngsters. It also greatly increased Tyrsell’s status - both that his herd was three times the size it had been, and that he was considered capable by the other king-stags of controlling so large a herd. Darian had been suitably impressed when he’d been told; this new herd established Tyrsell at the very top of herd hierarchy, a kind of dyheli Great Lord of State.
Because of the size of this herd, and because gryphons had been ferrying baggage and would continue to do so as long as there was baggage to ferry, there had been no need for anyone to have to leave anything behind. All in all, this would be a relatively easy resettlement, as orderly as any migration from an old Vale to a new one.
Except that we can’t just step across a Gate to get there, more’s the pity. It would take a week, roughly, of dawn-to-dark riding to get there, and he had no doubt that Snowfire meant that quite literally. They would rise before the dawn and not make camp until after dusk.
Still, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before, and he fell back into his habits of rear-guard, habits that fit him as comfortably as a well-worn and supple hawking glove.
:We’re about to be relieved of duty,: Tyrsell said suddenly, on the last afternoon of the journey, as they passed beneath trees that had changed very little with the passing of a mere four or five years. The dyheli pricked his ears forward, and Darian turned to see a figure riding back along the line of baggage-laden dyheli, coming toward them. A moment later, he recognized Nightwind, and waved at her. She waved back, and when she got into conversational distance, told him, “Kel and I are going to take rearguard; we’re just about at the new Vale, and Snowfire and Starfall thought you two might like to enter at the head of the line instead of the tail.”
:Well! That’s a courteous thought!: Tyrsell said with approval. :Thank you; I know I would prefer it.:
“Me, too,” Darian agreed self-consciously. He sent a brief thought to Kuari, then relinquished his duty to Nightwind.
By going into a hard canter, he and Tyrsell came up to the front of the line well in time to go through the titular entrance side-by-side with Starfall and Snowfire. He felt a swell of pride so powerful that he flushed as they gravely made space for Tyrsell to fit between them.
There was no entrance as such, no Veil, for there was as yet no real Heartstone, only a kind of superior node anchored in a physical rock formation. But the hertasi and the few Tayledras who had preceded them had set up two rough pillars of stone on either side of the pass that let them into their valley, to mark where the Veil would one day be.
And they had done some subtle defensive improvements as well, although you would have to know what you were looking for to find them. They had made the sides of the hills far steeper, making it very difficult for an armed force to get into the new Vale by climbing the hillsides. There were well-camouflaged guard points on those hillsides, and anyone who tried to invade that way would shortly be full of arrows. But to look at them, there was nothing more unusual here than exceptionally steep rock formations, formations that had probably been this way since the beginning of the world.
No swarm of dyheli and hertasi met them this time; the hertasi were probably working hard on the building. But Ayshen, who had gone on ahead, did meet them, standing in the center of the path, actually bedecked in his formal costume, bowing ceremoniously to all three of them.
“The hertasi of k’Valdemar Vale welcome you to your new home, friends and brothers,” he said ceremoniously. “May there always be as much pleasure here as you bring with you.”
Starfall smiled, and bowed in return. “Your welcome doubles our pleasure, my brother,” he replied. “It is good to be home.”
Starfall dismounted, which seemed to be the signal for everyone else to do the same. “Allow me to guide you to your new ekele,” Ayshen said, and without waiting for a reply, led the way up the path that looked increasingly familiar with every step. It wasn’t one of the paths in k’Vala - but it also wasn’t the path that Darian remembered.
Someone had been hard at work on the plantings, someone like Steelmind, who could coax plants into amazing growth spurts in a very short period of time. Although by no means as lush as k’Vala, there were the vine screens, plantings of exotics, and tree sculptures that Darian had come to think of as “proper.” The path twisted and turned, crossing over the little stream he remembered, with rustic bridges and artistically placed stepping stones providing dry-footed crossings. From time to time, Ayshen stopped, and pointed out a dwelling of one sort or another - most of them proper tree-built ekele, though the trees never supported more than one, and access was by means of a rope ladder more often than a staircase. When he stopped, those who found the place attractive would pause long enough for a discussion of who was the most taken with the situation. The discussions never lasted too long; one person (or two, if it was a couple) would remain, the dyheli with the appropriate baggage would remain, and everyone else would go on. Starfall quickly took possession of an ekele built in the tree where his old camping place had been, and no one disputed him. Then Ayshen stopped in front of what appeared to be a vine-covered mound.
“This was your original camping place, Snowfire,” he said. “And I wondered if either you and Nightwind or Darian would have a preference for it.”
“Have you made an ekele in the cliff where Nightwind and Kel originally camped?” Snowfire asked.
Ayshen nodded. “Actually,” he said with evident pride, “I designed that one, and it’s built both on the cliff and in the cliff - rather like an ekele without a tree, with a balcony outside. But I thought I’d offer you this first.”
Snowfire laughed. “You needn’t have bothered; it sounds like a White Gryphon home, and I already know what Nightwind will want. How about you, Darian? Do you want this site?”
Although he wondered a little just what was underneath that mound of leaves - which certainly seemed bigger than the primitive hut that he remembered - Darian knew one thing for certain. This place was on the ground, and there were going to be storms in this Vale for some years yet. It would take a long time to power up the new Heartstone to the equivalent of the k’Vala Stone. And until k’Valdemar - whose idea had that name been? - was sealed against the weather and the seasons, he did not want to live in a tree that would sway in a storm!
“I’ll take this,” he said instantly. “If no one else likes it better than I do.”
Snowfire laughed again, as did several others. “Little brother, I doubt that anyone here but a kyree or a hertasi would care for a dwelling on the ground the way you do,” Ayshen said genially. The dyheli carrying Darian’s baggage separated from the rest, and the group went on, leaving Darian in solitary possession of his new home.
The first thing he did was to take the baggage off the patient dyheli so that they could go off to graze or rest. As they paced off with the click of carefully-placed hooves, he turned his attention to the ekele.
It took him a moment to find the door, and it was a door, now, a good, solid, wooden door with a handle, not a mere screen of vines. When he opened it, he stared in open-mouthed disbelief at what lay behind it.
This place could not be more unlike the hut that had once stood here. Beneath the vines were solid walls, as thick as his forearm was long, at least. Outside, they were the same color as the vines; inside they had been whitewashed. The floor had been covered in flat paving stones, cunningly fitted together so that a sheet of paper could not fit between them, and sealed with grout. There was a stone fireplace in one wall, real windows with glass in them in the others. The windows were fairly well covered by the leaves and didn’t let in much light, but there were skylights in the remarkably thick roof that took care of that deficiency. Like most Tayledras dwellings, there wasn’t a straight line to be seen, for all the walls and even the doors and window frames curved. Instead of furniture, there were window seats, low tables, thick rugs of fur and fleece, and cushions everywhere.
A door in the same wall that held the fireplace led to a second room, but Darian waited to bring his baggage inside before he explored further. When he did, he discovered that the fireplace was shared with this room, which was a sleeping chamber, quite windowless and without a skylight, with a bed built into the wall and chests woven of willow branches for clothing. There was yet another door leading out of this room, and his curiosity took him onward.
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