Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven

by Mercedes Lackey

  Before Nan could answer, the sound of slow applause stopped her. They both turned.

  A very handsome young man stood there, clapping his hands with approval, wearing the sort of clothing that would not have been unusual on any of the young farmers hereabouts: linen shirt, open at the throat, heavier smock over it, loose brown trousers, barefoot. He had a shock of reddish, curly hair, a very merry round face—and there was no mistaking the green eyes that danced amusement at them. He confirmed Nan’s guess by clearing his throat and taking the next lines. “Thou speak’st aright; / I am that merry wanderer of the night. / I jest to Oberon and make him smile When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, / Neighing in likeness of a filly foal: / And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, / In very likeness of a roasted crab, And when she drinks, against her lips I bob / And on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale. / The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale, / Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me; / Then slip I from her bum, down topples she, / And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough; / And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, / And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear / A merrier hour was never wasted there.”

  Then he grinned, and held out his arms. “And merry met again, my pretty girls! Your Robin has missed you!”

  “Puck!” squealed Sarah. Nan just grinned, and without any sense of embarrassment whatsoever, the two of them skipped out of the circle to embrace him like the old friend he was.

  He kissed the tops of their heads, being more than a head taller than either of them. “Eh, now, you’ve grown, you two.”

  “And so have you!” Sarah retorted. “Thou naughty sprite! We know now you can take whatever shape you want to. You’re just humoring us!”

  “Welladay, welladay, would you rather I was your beamish boy, all apple-cheeks and innocence?” He stepped back from them, and between one breath and the next, became the boy they had first met.

  “We like you however you choose to be, boy or man or Prince of Logres,” Sarah said firmly. “Or Pooka or Hob or sprite. You’re still Puck and still our friend no matter what shape you take.”

  “Eh, well said, sweet Sarah.” A blur and a blink and he was the young man again. “But I think I’ll be wearing this suit o’skin for now.” He sniffed. “Do I smell jam?”

  “Very nice jam,” Nan affirmed. “We brought you a tea—though we didn’t actually bring tea, just water.”

  “Piff, I can remedy that.” He waved a hand airily. “Well, spread your carpet on the green, and let’s have tea whilst you tell me what brings you to the land of Daffyd and Deryn.”

  They had brought a cloth to save their skirts from staining, and Nan laid it down while Sarah spread out the food. On pouring out the water, it appeared that Puck had done something to it. “Cowslip wine,” he said, around a mouthful of buttered, jam-spread bread. “Never fear, ’tisn’t strong enough to get a child tipsy, I just fancy it.”

  “Well, it’s a short tale,” Nan said, carefully buttering her own slice of bread. “Lord Alderscroft got wind of a new Elemental Master somewhere hereabouts. A Water Master, he says, but the Elementals won’t say who it is or exactly where the person is. He wants us to find this Master and… well, explain the Lodge and the Circle, and see what happens.”

  “Hmm-hmm, and spy in the meantime to see if the new Master is likely to fall into dark paths.” Puck nodded. “Seeing as he trod that road himself, nearly to his own undoing. With pain comes wisdom, at least in his case.” He finished his slice and started on another. “And I reckon you two have come to the conclusion that you aren’t going to find out who it is.”

  Sarah sighed. “Yes. So… well, we thought we’d see if you would help. Since you’re the Oldest Old Thing—”

  “Ah, on land but not in the sea, my pretties, and this new Master has a Master, and that Master is Llyr.” He nodded, though both of them looked at him, mystified. “Oh, yes, Llyr, wave-crowned, Oldest Old Thing in the Sea as I am on the Land. Sea-lord as I am Land-lord, and guardian of the Selch and the Pooka and all the other Fair Folk of the waters. He saw this one, and saw the power in her, and claimed her as his own, and no more ready to see power go to the bad than I am, he’s seen she gets training.”

  Nan gaped at him. She! Well that would give Lord A a bit of a turn!

  Puck grinned at them. “Aye, aye, a girl-child it is, and your lord never considered that, now, did he?”

  “Not really,” Sarah said, and smiled just a bit. “Well, then, can you help us?”

  “Hmmm, now that is a question. I wouldn’t want to tread on Llyr’s toes, no I wouldn’t. He’s a bitter thing, and cold, and his thoughts are dark, on account of family troubles in the long-ago, and oh, but he is quick to anger.” Puck finished his second slice of bread and leaned back, mug full of cowslip wine in hand. “Mind, he almost never shows his own self, leaving working his will up to his creatures. And he’s like the sea, all smiles and sunny on the surface, but dark and deep and sometimes deadly beneath. Welladay. I shall tell you what I can do. I’ll show you where she is, and I’ll give you the means to see through Llyr’s magic, and what you do then is up to you. Bearing in mind that you won’t want to anger Llyr.”

  Nan let out her breath in a long sigh. “That’s more than I’d have dared ask for,” she said. “I don’t want to presume on our friendship.”

  “Which is why you are my friends still, oh pretty goose.” He passed his hand over the top of the jug, which was still half-full, and gravely poured out mugs full of something golden as honey for each of them. “And now that I think of it, I want you to be keeping an eye on this maiden for me, as well. Dark things are watching her and will try and use her. It is so with all who are strong and ignorant.”

  He handed them each the mugs. “This will give the power of seeing the Fair Folk and the Elementals, and the means of seeing through Llyr’s sea-fog. Drink!”

  Nan did so without hesitation; it was sweet and sharp, like wine, but with the taste of honey. It seemed oddly familiar to her.

  “That’s mead, the old, old drink of gods and kings and warriors.” He winked. “Don’t drink too deep, now, ’tis treacherous. And here.” He passed two slices of bread over, each holding a slice of red-fleshed salmon on it, though where it had come from neither could have said. “Now eat of this. ’Tis the Salmon of Knowledge, and it will give you the tongue of the locals, and the knowledge of here and inland, so you can pass as something other than English—there’s still little love here wasted on the English in general, though pretty maids may be given better shrift.”

  Now this was just what Nan had been wishing for, when they first arrived at Criccieth! Eagerly she bit into her share, just as Grey and Neville winged over from the cottage.

  Neville bowed to Puck, who laughed and fed a scrap of salmon to him and to Grey. “You two might as well speak the speech of Daffyd too,” he chuckled. “Oh my wisest of birds!”

  Neville bolted his scrap down, shook all his feathers and posed with obvious pride at Puck’s praise, while Grey daintily held her bit in her foot and ate it morsel by morsel.

  “Will it last?” Nan wanted to know.

  “Oh, aye, it’s a useful gift and one worth having.” Puck nodded. “Your girl is living in a bit of a stone cottage, all alone, just outside of a little village called Clogwyn, up the coast from here. You’re in a good brisk walk south and landward of where she is, high enough above the sea not to be in danger, close enough for her father to heave his coracles on the beach. Her name is Mari Prothero, and her father is Daffyd. Creatures of Llyr are teaching her the ways of her magic. Now, when you’ve anything for my ears, just look for the fairy ring in your garden and put my token in the center and I’ll come. And I’ll likely come without a summons when I fancy tea.” He leapt to his feet. “Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again, my pretties!”

  There was a shimmer, and a brightness, and then he was gone.

  Mari was just a little vexed at the way things were progressing—or rather, were
not progressing. Here she was, trying to get Idwal’s interest, and he was absolutely oblivious to her hints. And she just couldn’t seem to get rid of the others, except for Mabon, who had stood up one night after Idwal finished telling a tale, announced that he simply could not offer anything that the others couldn’t do better, and that he was going back to the sea.

  Poor Mabon. It didn’t help that it was true. He couldn’t teach her magic, he couldn’t tell a tale, was not any sort of musician, wasn’t as handsome as Rhodri, wasn’t as amusing as Trefor, and wasn’t anything like the help with the fishing that Niarl was. She had felt terribly sorry for him—but not so sorry that she was going to run after him and beg him to come back.

  After all, if she didn’t eliminate someone, that unpleasant creature, the clan leader—she still didn’t know his name—would begin to suspect what she was up to. She was supposed to be deciding among these suitors. He had clearly sent her good choices, so some delay was perfectly natural as she was spoiled for choice. Still, if she had gone much longer without one giving up, things would look suspicious indeed. Mabon did her a favor.

  She couldn’t stay vexed at Idwal for long, however, since what Idwal was teaching her was so very fascinating. It was all so exciting that as soon as a lesson began, she would completely forget she was supposed to be annoyed.

  Already she could reliably invite the three Tylwyth Teg—Idwal said they were true Elementals, and not actually Fair Folk—that lived in the spring nearest the cottage. One would always come, often two, and reasonably often, all three. This, Idwal said, meant that her “calls” would work, and more to the point, if she needed an Elemental, one would likely turn up without her needing to call.

  And she could see other creatures now, though she couldn’t really communicate with them in a meaningful way—others being the creatures of the other three elements, fire, earth and air. Air, she saw most often, the transparent winged girls that were the primary Air Elementals; earth now and again in the form of little hobs and good-tempered creatures she couldn’t put a name to in the meadow; and fire, once, in the fire that heated the oven, a strange, lizard-like creature with glowing eyes.

  Idwal had taught her how to protect herself, how to hide herself from the eyes of magicians, and promised to teach her how to defend and attack at need. She was looking forward to that. But today he had been quite mysterious, and told her only to come down to the shore at dawn, because he wished to surprise her.

  So down to the shore she went, in the early morning before the boys came, for that was when he had specified. She crept out of the cottage without waking her da, who was going out with Niarl to fish for salmon today, and saw him waiting there for her, at a distance, standing so quietly he could have been the stump of an old mast sticking out of the sand. The sky was still dark to the west, so he was little more than a thrust of shadow against it. But as she walked toward him, carefully feeling her way with bare feet, the sun was lightening the horizon behind her, and by the time she was halfway to him, she could make out the pale oval of his face against his hair. It struck her then, what was so different about these Selch men: they all had hair longer than most men hereabouts wore it, yet they were also curiously clean-shaven. All but the clan-leader, that is, who had sported a great beard and moustache of grizzled brown.

  As she neared him, she saw there was something dark pooled at his feet, as if he had thrown something down there. Soon she realized what it was: a sealskin cloak, the means by which they transformed from man to seal. She felt a twinge of disappointment; she already had seen them transform, this was nothing new. She was hoping that since he had urged her here at such an hour, he might have something more interesting in mind than teaching her—say—how to tell a Selch from a true seal. She already knew that; she’d noted that to her newly awakened eyes, the Selch all had a faint, greenish glow about them when they were seals, and she guessed that true seals probably did not have any such thing.

  “You come in good time, my student,” he said genially, and bent to pick up the cloak. That was when she saw that there were two, not one, as he picked up the other, and handed it to her. “You’ll want to shake the sand from that,” he advised, doing the same with his. “Make sure there’s none on the inside, particularly.”

  It was very heavy, surprisingly soft, and moved in her hands like fabric, not like the stiff hides she was used to. “What’s this for?” she asked, shaking it vigorously. Had he meant to give it to her as a gift? If so, given that he was a Selch… it was a rather macabre gift.

  “It’s my surprise. I’ve gotten a Selch sealskin for you; that’s what that is,” he replied. “That’s a hard thing to do, to get one for someone who hasn’t one of her own; mostly we grow our own as youngsters, since rarely do any Selch live on land to man-or woman-hood. Once in a great while, someone keeps one about that came from a relative who died in human form. I had to go almost to Selkie-waters to find this one.”

  She felt a little queasy. “The Selch—wasn’t killed—was he?” she asked, the sealskin suddenly feeling very heavy in her hands, and she wondered if it was tainted with blood. The skin from a dead Selch! Wasn’t it rather like the skin of a dead man? Who would keep such a thing?

  He chuckled. “She, and no. She went to land for love of a mortal man, lived with her faithful love all of her life, had many children, half came to the sea and half stayed with her, and she died at a very old age in his arms. A happy tale. She never missed the sea, for he told her to don her skin when she needed to be free on the waves. She helped him with the fishing until she grew too old for it, then one of her sea-children came in her place. And when she died, she left the skin, right and proper, to her children. One of her land-children brought it to the sea-kin, in case anyone should have need of it. He minded him of the stories of unhappy Selch and Selkie, kept from the sea when their lovers hid their skins. But it never was needed to be used for such a thing, and when word came around I was looking, it was brought to me.”

  She felt much better after that, and the sealskin went back to being a lovely object in her hands. She still couldn’t imagine why he’d brought it, though. If he’d just wanted her to see what one looked like, he could have shown her his own skin.

  “So, so, so, now put it on,” Idwal commanded, swinging his own sealskin about his shoulders. “It’s time you heeded the heritage of your blood. More than time, and if it had been me, you’d have been taught at a time when you could still have grown a skin of your own.”

  “Eh?” she replied, startled by his order. He couldn’t possibly mean that she was to transform! “But—”

  “But you’ve as much Selch blood as your brother, and though Clan Leader Gethin would not like me telling you this, ’tis your birthright to come to the sea as much as it is his.” He gestured at her. “As I said, I’d have had you taught when you were but toddling unsteady on the shore. More than that, I’d have let you know what the binding was on your blood from the time you understood it, and came to the Clan to see all the likely bulls while they were still pups. Then there wouldn’t have been the shock and the fuss and the carrying on, for you’d have known them, and they you, and there would have been friendly persuasion on both sides. Put it on, now. ’Tis time you saw your proper world, as much as you are Elemental Master as you are Selch.”

  She copied his motions, swinging the skin over her shoulders, so that the head hung down her back like a hood. It felt heavy and warm for a moment, then unaccountably got lighter… and warmer.

  “Now,” he said, “Put on the face. Like this.”

  He reached back and pulled the seal-face over his own, his eyes looking out through the empty holes in the skin.

  She did. She got a strange, shivery feeling all over herself as the head came down over hers, and she looked out through the eyeholes. Already the world looked a little different; a little more gray, and a little clearer and sharper. Was that just her imagination?

  Idwal nodded with approval. “The transformation is noth
ing more nor less than will. No fancy casting of spells, no preparations. Just as natural as a babe learning to walk. Now. Want to be Selch. Long for the sea. Know the sea is our mother, and know she will welcome you when you come to her. Feel yourself being held and cradled by the water. Be Selch—”

  This was easy. Her da had taken her out in the coracle many times, and she knew the seals in their very home. Idwal hardly needed to urge her; all of her life, she’d watched seals in the sea, how they seemed to fly through the water and dance on the waves, and even as a child she’d longed to be able to do the same. They had seemed so free, so happy—and how could they not be happy, since they didn’t need cottages or clothing or nets or gear. They could go where they liked, and never went hungry, for fish hadn’t a chance of escaping them. Oh, how she wanted to be one of—

  With a surprised yip, she found herself falling forward, splashing down into the waves of the incoming tide as her suddenly stubby arms flailed, her legs no longer able to hold her upright—

  Not legs.

  She snorted water out of her nose and curled herself around and looked with shock at her hind-flippers, at her own sleek brown back, and then at her fore-flippers. And the sealskin was no longer a hood over her face. It was her face!

  She was warm—the biggest surprise was that now her feet were warm, for they had been cold, bare as they were.

  She heard a bark to one side that she recognized as laughter and swung her head in that direction. A handsome, slightly scarred bull looked down at her—bulls being twice or three times the size of a cow-seal. Idwal, she knew it already, and knew that she would have known it even if he hadn’t been standing next to her when they transformed. Her seal-form recognized his, just as her human-form recognized the human shape of her teacher.