Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 03] - Owlknight

by Mercedes Lackey

  Darian didn’t have to think about it. He knew that Keisha would be hurt if she thought she’d been left out of the celebration. He did not want to hurt her feelings, nor did he want to make her think that he had forgotten all about her in the rush of euphoria after passing the Trial. “I’m glad you thought of that,” he replied gratefully. “So long as we don’t t overburden our hertasi friends, that’s what we ought to do.”

  Sunleaf laughed. “Oh, trust me, it’s in my own best interest,” he answered, and from across the clearing, Darian saw him wink. “I know what she’d do to me if she found out we had a party without her!”

  “Do to you? Have pity, I have to sleep with her—what do you think she’d do to me? I’d be afraid to close my eyes!” Since the attendees at this little celebration were all males, and mostly bachelors, the entire gathering laughed at both of them, and Darian was momentarily ashamed to speak so of Keisha. On the other hand, Snowfire has said the same thing about Nightwind, to her face, and she just pretends to threaten him. “We should keep it very casual, but give Keisha and the other girls a chance to dress up.” There; that should make up for his lapse.

  One of the hertasi that had adopted Darian and Keisha—a young striped male called Meeren—was picking up discarded and empty cups. At this sally, he hissed a laugh of his own. “Very well, then, do not worry about the preparations,” the leather-capped hertasi put in. “It is of manageable difficulty. In fact, with this much notice, we can have a few delicacies set aside for you. I will arrange for the official party to take place when Keisha returns.”

  Darian relaxed; Meeren was one of Ayshen’s most valued assistants, a specialist in logistics. Whatever Meeren organized was certain to be a success.

  Now the young hertasi turned to sweep the clearing with his gaze, his tail counterbalancing his movement as he turned. “And what Dar’ian has said makes me think. Do you young Tayledras think to be inviting some females, so that Keisha will not be the only one of her gender here? It will not only be Keisha who is disappointed to learn that there was a gathering to which no one thought to bring a friend.”

  “That’s an even better idea—how did this end up as an all-male party, anyway?” asked Wintersky, looking around himself in astonishment. One of the shaych scouts replied with a laugh, “We were just lucky?”

  “Don’t ask me—I was the last one to be invited,” Darian countered, tossing a cushion at the scout. “It wasn’t any idea of mine!”

  Keisha was unusually glad to see the entrance of the Vale ahead of her. The twin pillars with the shimmer of the Veil between them beckoned her with all the warmth and welcome of an old friend. She was equally glad to ride through the cool shadows under moss-covered trunks and dismount at her very own door again. She removed the panniers resting across the back of her dyheli, but before she could touch the tack, a hertasi had come and taken it, and the dyheli trotted off to rejoin his herd.

  How do they do that? Appear out of nowhere and just take over things? She stared at the retreating hertasi tail. I am never going to get used to it. It’s like they are always around, and always watching, no matter what we do—and then they know what we need next. She picked up the empty panniers, one in each hand, and with her foot nudged open the green-painted door.

  It wasn’t that she was tired—that was far from the case; she had enjoyed the ride back enormously. Spring was her favorite season, and this spring was turning out to be particularly lovely. So far it had rained just enough, and only at night, so that blue skies graced the daylight hours. Everything was growing or in bloom. There were already spring vegetables coming in to the market, weeks before the usual time. It hadn’t been too cold or too hot. In fact, if the entire region had been seated beneath a Veil, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

  No, the problem was not that Keisha was tired—unless it was that she was tired of Errold’s Grove. When she returned to her childhood home, she increasingly felt as if she was trying to squeeze into clothing that she had long since outgrown. Every time she made her weekly visit it was the same thing, whereas the Vale was constantly changing. The only change in the village was the occasional new pile of rocks, a fresh border around a flower bed, or a new shirt worn out-of-season so that everybody noticed. Other than that, it was the same little complaints, the same village gossip—

  The same lectures from Mother about still being single.

  She dropped her panniers into their corner, and frowned, feeling a sullen anger well up in her again. Back in Errold’s Grove she had fought it down, but now she allowed herself to admit it. I wanted so badly to tell her exactly what I thought. What was so bad about not being married? It wasn’t as if she was the only one in the family expected to produce grandchildren —there were already two squalling infants bearing the Alder name and features, one each from her two oldest brothers. What on earth could she do as a married woman—besides produce legitimate grandchildren—that she couldn’t do as a single one? Could she be any more valued? Would she have any higher rank?

  If she doesn’t stop giving me the “you’ll grow old, lonely, and abandoned” lecture every time I’m ready to leave, I swear, I’m going to stop visiting her, Keisha thought sullenly. What’s more, I’ll let everyone in the village know why I stopped visiting her!

  She wouldn’t and she knew it, but the idea was very, very tempting. As she walked into the outer room with its comfortable furnishings of woven branches and overstuffed beige cushions, its walls of soft cream, and tiled floor, she took her first completely free breath since she’d left. This was home, from the mask and decorated gryphon-feather hanging on the wall, gifts from Firesong and Silverfox, to the flowering vines around the skylight of the bathing room.

  I’m stale, that’s what it is. All I ever see these days are farm animals, idiot men as dumb as farm animals, women as stubborn as farm animals, pregnant mothers-to-be, cuts and scrapes, and the occasional sniffle. It wasn’t that she wanted Errold’s Grove to suffer a disaster. Nothing of the sort could be farther from her mind! But she didn’t even get to see the interesting diseases the Northern tribes brought down with them anymore. The Sanctuary Healers got all of those. All she was left with were the all-too-ordinary problems.

  Havens, people are taking such care these days that I never even see an infected puncture anymore!

  She dropped all of her soiled clothing from the trip into the basket-hamper they kept for the purpose just outside the bathing-room door. She stripped off the tunic and trews she wore, and added them to the pile, then entered the bathing room. In the echoing room, tiled floor-to-ceiling, she knelt beside the square tub sunken into the floor and drew herself a bath. They had hot water now, although it came from a tank perched up in a tree, shared by several other ekele and heated by the sun rather than by magic.

  Maybe we’ll get that, too, in a few years, though it seems a pity to waste the sun’s heat when it costs us nothing. She was no mage, but she was acutely sensitive to the cost in magical energies of every act of magic. Living here in a new Vale as much as living with Darian had made her very aware of such things. Darian was in superb physical shape, even to a Healer’s eyes, and when she saw the physical exhaustion he bore after some of his lessons, she had no doubts remaining about magic’s costs.

  When the tub was full, she added herbs and scented salts, and soothing fragrance rose in the steam that condensed on the leaves of the vines planted in boxes around the skylight above her. She eased into the tub, to just over her breasts, and soaked for a good long time, allowing herself to run through all of the emotions she had repressed. Nightwind had told her that holding them in did no good and much harm, so she let them run their course. Disappointment led to anger, which gave way in turn to a seething despair.

  What am I doing with myself? Nothing, that’s what! Is Mother right? Am I going to die a cross old maid, lonely and abandoned? How long is it going to be before this makes me sour, and Darian gets tired of me and starts looking for a prettier girl? It was
going to happen; she was just sure of it. Then what?

  Then, I suppose, I’ll go back to my little house in the village. Eventually they’ll start to treat me the way they treated Justyn....

  A hard lump of self-pity rose in her throat, a sob that she choked down lest one of the hertasi was about. If they caught her in this mood, they’d be upset and concerned, and entirely sure it was their fault that she was unhappy.

  The hertasi like me anyway....

  She couldn’t get herself out of this mood; it felt as if she had fallen into a pit and was too tired to climb out. She squeezed out a few bitter tears, a distillation of it all, and then, suddenly, felt much better. It was as if those few tears had taken all of her self-pity with them.

  Not that crying had changed anything.

  But with the tears out, she started to think past them, realizing how silly she would have sounded to anyone else, and in a moment, she laughed weakly at her own absurd thoughts. In the very worst case, it’s not as if I would lose everything! Even if Darian gets tired of me, we’ll still be friends, I’d still be a full Healer, and I’m entitled to ask to be sent wherever I want. And Shandi is coming back, so how bad can things be, really? Darian gave no hint that he had lost interest in her, anyway—so why was she borrowing trouble?

  Worry about that when the time comes, if it ever happens at all. And if it does—well, there’s no reason why I can’t exchange positions with one of the Sanctuary Healers, is there? I’ll bet one of them would be willing to take over the village for a few months’ rest! Or even longer—there’s no telling how any of those Trainees are going to turn out, and if any of them turns out like old Gil Jarred, with a weak Gift, then Errold’s Grove is the right place for him and I can take his place in the Sanctuary permanently. That will give me plenty of excitement! The very fact that she had come up with an alternative to moldering in the village cheered her up immensely.

  So what if Darian has more and more duties—and Firesong keeps heaping him with more complicated lessons. I might end up being sent off by the Healer’s Circle, too—things happen. Crying about them before they’ve happened isn’t going to stop them.

  She stopped herself before she could step off the edge again, and fall into that pit of depression. I think I’d better talk to Nightwind.

  She scrubbed off the sweat and dirt of the journey, feeling as if she was scrubbing away all her frustrations as well. She washed her hair, then ran more clean water for a thorough rinse. Sometimes it seemed like water was her best friend of all; it was nearly impossible to feel too badly when in a refreshing soak or a warm rain. When she emerged from the bathing room, cleansed and wrapped in thick towels, she found that one of the hertasi had been in the bedroom before her, and had laid out—a garment she didn’t recognize.

  What—Havens, what is this?

  She lifted one sleeve of the dress that had been put out for her to don. A springlike leaf green, it was absolutely charming—of light Tayledras-made silk with billowing sleeves caught into long cuffs, and a high collar. Both collar and cuffs were ornamented with silver embroidery, and there was a second, sleeveless gown of a slightly heavier weight in a darker green to wear over it. This sleeveless gown had a beautiful embroidery of silver-thread vines, leaves, and flowers running from the left shoulder to the hem, and all around the bottom.

  This was not the simple green tunic-and-trews she had expected. She did not recall that there had been anything special planned for her return.

  But next to the dress was a note attached to a new hair ornament—one of Aya’s sparkling white tail-feathers with green crystal beadwork ornamenting the shaft. She picked it up and read it.

  You are invited to share a small celebration in honor of Darian Firkin k‘Vala k’Valdemar on the occasion of his attaining the rank of Master Mage. Follow the firebird feathers. And there was a postscript, in a rougher hand. We decided to postpone this until you came home; it wouldn’t be a proper celebration without you. She didn’t need a signature to recognize Darian’s handwriting on the postscript, and only the elegant Silverfox could have penned the invitation.

  She forgot her anger completely. Surprise was followed immediately by such a rush of cheer that she might as well have downed an entire beaker of wine by herself.

  She dropped her towels on the floor and hurried into the lovely gown, fastening the hair clasp into her damp hair. The feather trailed down along the side of her face, brushing her cheek in a graceful curve. Although the feather ceased to drip false sparks once it was no longer attached to Aya, it did retain the ability to sparkle as if it had been dusted with minute particles of gemstones.

  With her skirts caught up in one hand, she ran out the front door and caught sight of the first of the firebird feathers. This was a smaller, body-feather; it hung from a strand of beads fastened to the lamp-standard marking the beginning of the lefthand path, fluttering and twisting in the light breeze.

  The feathers were easy enough to spot—each one was within sight of another—and she soon met someone else following the same trail.

  Wintersky’s current partner, a Tayledras scout called Ravenwing, waved to Keisha just as Keisha caught sight of her. She, too, was dressed for a celebration, in tunic of gold deerskin and trews of black silk. The tunic had beading in black and metallic gold across the shoulders and around the collar, with fringes along the sleeves and bottom hem that cascaded past her knees. Her bondbird, a handsome little cooperihawk, perched on a light gauntlet she wore on her left hand.

  “Heyla!” Ravenwing called cheerfully. “Have you any idea what’s been planned? I got out of my bath to find an invitation next to my clothing!”

  Keisha shook her head, admiring Ravenwing’s new hair patterns. Many of the Tayledras had snow-white hair by their early twenties at least, simply because they lived within a place where extremely powerful mage-energies were a part of everyday life, but the scouts often had their hair dyed in camouflage colors so that they blended in with their surroundings. Ravenwing’s patterns were brand new, the colors and edges crisp and unfaded—and it was obvious to Keisha’s experienced eyes that the reason she’d been in the bath was because she had been washing out the excess dyes.

  “I love your new patterns!” she exclaimed—for Ravenwing’s hair had been dyed to resemble the wings of the enormous brown-eye butterflies that thronged the Vale. It was still camouflage, but it was anything but drab.

  “You do? Thank you!” Ravenwing looked pleased, and ran her fingers through her loose hair with obvious pleasure. “I just got so tired of looking like I had a nest of old leaves on my head!”

  “Once the others see it, they’ll want to copy it,” Keisha assured her. “It looks wonderful!”

  Ravenwing caught her up on the news as they followed the trail of beaded feathers at a brisk walk. Keisha learned that she hadn’t missed much, other than Darian attaining Master status. “Everybody’s too caught up in getting ready for the Heralds to arrive,” Ravenwing concluded, and looked curiously at Keisha. “Is it true that one of them is your sister?”

  “So they tell me! I’ll be glad to see her. Until she was Chosen, she was my best friend besides being my sister.” Keisha fingered the feather in her hair thoughtfully. “I hope she hasn’t forgotten that.”

  “How could she? Don’t be silly.” Ravenwing seemed very sure of that. “She’ll be just as happy to see you as you are to see her. And if she’s anything like you, I can’t wait to meet her. There aren’t enough girls our age around this Vale, not nearly enough to get into the kind of trouble we used to cause back in k’Vala!”

  Ravenwing’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she said that, and Keisha had to laugh. The Tayledras girl had been very free with her tales of the scrapes she and her gang of friends had perpetrated, and Keisha had, more than once, wished she had gotten a chance to join in the mischief. “Believe me, Shandi can cause enough trouble for three! If she hasn’t gone all sober on us now that she’s a Herald, we’ll have a fine time—oh, look
—” She interrupted herself. “That must be where the party is!”

  Meeren, her own hertasi, stood beside the path, holding aside a curtain of vines for someone who had come from the opposite direction. He saw them, and beckoned them on; they hurried their steps and he grinned, showing all his teeth, as they reached him.

  “Ah, the final pair!” Meeren exclaimed. “With you, we are ready to begin the celebration at last!”

  Keisha ducked under the slant of vines, and was seized from behind by a pair of strong arms. “Keisha!” Darian crowed, spinning her around and around until she was dizzy. “You found my presents!”

  “What? The dress? The feather?” she asked, trying to catch her breath, her head swimming as he finally stopped whirling her around. “Never mind, thank you for both—oh, Darian, congratulations! This is—wonderful!”

  She cupped both her hands around his chin and pulled his head down for a long, heartfelt kiss. She heard the others whooping behind her, and for once, was not embarrassed by their rowdy attentions. She was wholeheartedly proud of him, and happy for his achievement, and she wanted him to know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. His arms closed around her as he drew her close, and for a time the cheers and hoots faded into a faint murmur as her ears filled with the pounding of both their hearts.

  Then he let her go, and she took a step backward, smiling breathlessly up into his wide grin. She hadn’t even gotten her scattered wits together when he seized her hand and led her ceremoniously to a seat on the far side of a little clearing, where two enormous cushions had been braced against backrests placed on the ground. “My lady,” he said, gesturing broadly as he bowed to her, his grin as wide as ever, “if you will choose your seat, we can begin.”