by Dave Duncan
Rap shrugged and left the matter to simmer on the back of his mind while he tackled other things—like his smoking left leg, for instance. He shifted around.
“How’s that little lovely you had with you last summer—Bluebell?”
“Fine. Not so little now.”
“How many wives does that make?”
Death Bird became cagy. “Several.”
“How many children?”
The goblin grinned. “State secret. How is your woman?”
“Oh, she’s fine,” Rap said. “Just had the cutest little son. We think he’s going to be sort of fair-haired impish, which is fine because we have a jotunn son already and one of our daughters is impish and the other is jotunn and thank the Gods none of them really looks like me, but just let me tell you what Kadie did the other day…”
Death Bird waited with ill-concealed impatience until Rap’s tale was complete. Without even a smile at the punchline, he launched into a dull and pointless account of how his oldest son, Blood Beak, had killed his first bear.
2
Even a pixie could be lonely, and a pixie with no place of her own was a lost soul. As the dry season grew drier and hotter, Thaïle felt the call of the faraway College more strongly every day. Already it seemed to have stolen her from her friends, her family, and her familiar surroundings. Already it had enfolded her in its own occult, invisible embrace. She could make no plans; she could think no farther ahead than the onset of the next rainy season, because by then she would be sixteen and somewhere else and a different person, leading a wholly different life, which she could not even now imagine. The Gaib Place was no longer her home. The road ahead disappeared over a cliff.
Before the recorder came, she had just begun to join in the preliminary steps of courtship, the shy exchange of gifts to indicate interest. Jain’s visit ended that. The neighbors all knew of it. Suddenly she was a stranger to her friends, excluded from those rituals. No man was going to waste a sample of his handiwork by giving it to a woman who had to go away soon. Thaïle, likewise, need not spend time crafting hats or gloves or any of the usual garment gifts that women produced for men—they would merely be refused with the traditional kindly fiction that they did not fit.
Only three of the boys she knew were of any interest, anyway, and they had all gone off on their explorations already.
Even her parents had reacted to her new destiny with a sort of rejection. It was certainly not deliberate and Thaïle might not even have noticed it had she not had Feeling, but somehow Gaib and Frial seemed to have accepted that she was lost to them, as their other two children were lost to Places of their own. They had moved closer to each other in some subtle way, as if filling a gap. That might be just a part of life, a form of self-defense for the old, who should not spend their declining years in fruitless pining. But in this case, the lost child had not gone yet; she had no Place of her own for shelter and no replacement love.
Thaïle had reluctantly concluded that her old life was ruined; she might as well embark on the new as soon as possible. To leave soon might be kinder to her parents than hanging around until the last minute. The coffee harvest was the busiest part of the year. She would stay and help with that and then depart. Meanwhile, as the beginning of summer was an easy time and her help not needed, she would start her farewells by going to visit her sister. It would be the first time she had ever been to the Wide Place, and almost certainly it would be the last.
As a father should, Gaib reacted to her announcement with predictably ponderous protests about the dangers of getting lost, raped, or eaten by bears. Frial considered the problem in her usual matter-of-fact way and said she didn’t think anyone with Thaïle’s Feeling could ever get lost and would have to be incredibly stupid to get herself raped. And there weren’t any more bears there than there were here. Gaib reluctantly acquiesced in her decision, as he always did.
Thaïle’s problem then was that what they said wasn’t what they felt. Underneath their affectionate concern, they felt guilty at having failed their child, angry that they didn’t know what they had done wrong, relieved that she would not be around for a little while to remind them of that failure, and then much more guilt for feeling that relief. At close quarters, with all their worries showing, people were unbearable.
The visit was not a success. The Wide Place was fair enough in itself, lurking in dim coolness below massive boughs. The air was heady with the smell of cedars, and nowhere could have been more private. The necessary compliments came easily.
And yet, within two minutes of her arrival, Thaïle knew that she would not be staying long. Sheel was far more interested in her newborn second son than in a half-forgotten sister, and Wide was far more interested in the sister than he should have been. His fingers were all round her like mosquitoes. His erotic cravings seemed to fill the air like the aromatic scent of the trees or the warning hum of bees.
Within an hour Thaïle knew that her sister regretted her choice. Wide had turned out to be a poor provider, lazy and shiftless. He hunted when he should have been harvesting, chased women when he should have been planting, and most of the rest of the time, also. Sheel admitted none of this, but her emotions did.
Later on the first evening, things turned even worse. Thaïle mentioned the College. Apparently Sheel had never told Wide that her family was Gifted. He was not pleased to learn that his children would have to keep a Death Watch one day and might be stolen away by the College if they displayed Faculty.
One good thing—when he heard about Thaïle’s occult talents, he stopped pawing her thigh under the table for a while.
Thaïle withstood the head-splitting tension for two days and then said farewell. Even home was better than the Wide Place.
Noon on the second day of her return journey found her trudging along by herself through long grass by the Big River. There was no real path to follow, because pixies seldom saw the need to go anywhere. She wandered between thorn bushes and tufty thickets of bamboo. The sun was brutal.
Some distance off to her right, behind a hedge of tall reeds, the river oozed back and forth across the plain, dark and mysterious, broad and oily, reputedly full of deadly crocodiles. It also contained snakes. To her left, the edge of the forest seemed even more sinister, but over the treetops loomed the rocky peaks of the Progistes, blue in the haze. They were the only landmark familiar to a hill-country girl here in the muggy lowland.
The previous night she had stayed at the Shoom Place, granted shelter by a friendly old couple with no children still at home. Tonight she wanted to sleep on her own pile of ferns, at the Gaib Place, and she had far to go.
She was hot, she was tired. Her feet ached, her legs ached, and the flies were driving her mad. The highlands were hot in the dry season; noon in the valleys was an ordeal to be endured. All sensible people would be lying under a tree somewhere with no clothes on.
A pouch at her belt held some slices of heavy bread and a fat leg of chicken, generously provided by Shoom and his goodwife, but Thaïle was too hot to think of eating. She was haunted by the problem of the College. She had the other problem, too, of what to tell her parents about Sheel. No one could lie to Frial.
However, at the moment she was very intrigued by a Feeling. There was someone ahead of her, coming her way, someone who was bubbling over with good cheer. She had Felt her—or possibly him—for over an hour now. She wanted to meet whoever this happy person was and find out what could possibly be so pleasurable on such an airless, stifling day. That was a more attractive puzzle than her own worries.
It was unfortunate that they were not traveling in the same direction, so that they might walk together and she might share the other’s bliss. But if they had been going the same way they would not have met, of course.
Strangers could be dangerous. A young woman traveling alone was never truly safe, not anywhere. Thaïle knew the risk as a theoretical thing that in practice never applied to her or anyone she knew, like being struck by lightni
ng. She ignored such absurd concerns as being beneath a woman’s dignity.
The unknown’s feelings drew close and then seemed to stop. Most likely the woman—or man—had halted for a noontime rest, which would give Thaïle a chance to creep up unseen and inspect her. Or possibly him. Feeling was not directional enough to use for stalking, but straight ahead stood a single tiny clump of exactly three trees, apparently all alone in this wasteland of grass. There would be shade there. That would make a good place to aim for.
Abruptly there was change. Rapture became rage, howls of pain came drifting through the hot air from the trees. Thaïle teetered for a moment on the lip of flight until she realized that she was not Feeling fear but fury. A bear or a lion or even a snake would have provoked much worse than that. She ran to help.
The screams guided her. She dashed around a last high clump of bamboo and stopped dead. Her quarry was dancing madly around in the nude, beating himself with a cloth that was probably his pants, yelling incoherently. A straw hat and a pair of sandals and some lunch lay forgotten in the trees’ shade. Even at that distance, Thaïle could see the ants streaming over them—big red ants.
The victim came to a panting halt and began inspecting himself with care. His emotions settled down into a lower range, anger mingled with regret and a dash of self-contempt. Satisfied at last that he had dislodged all his assailants, he looked up and discovered his audience. He shrieked in horror and jumped vertically, while attempting both to turn his back and put on his pants before he came down again. In consequence, he collapsed on the ground in a squirming heap of extreme embarrassment. Thaïle gave way to helpless laughter.
In a few moments she realized that the mortification and some real physical pain she was Feeling from the man were mixed with amusement, also. Apparently he could see the joke, and that seemed an unlikely male reaction under the circumstances. She choked down the rest of her laughter as he came over to her, respectable in his shorts but still breathless, streaked by dust and sweat from his exertions.
“I’m Leéb of the Leet Place,” he announced, “and… and… Oh, my! Oh… my!” He fell silent, staring at her open-mouthed. A wave of astonishment and happiness almost knocked her over.
He was only a boy, about her own age. He was short and bony and somehow comical. His mousy-brown hair was wavy instead of curled; it hung limp in sweaty straggles. His ears were very large, not at all pointy, and they stuck out absurdly. His nose was much too small for him.
But his eyes were pure gold and wide with wonder.
“I’m Thaïle of the Gaib Place,” she said hesitantly.
He said, “Oh!” again faintly. “Oh!”
“What’s wrong?” she cried, disconcerted.
“You’re… You’re beautiful!”
Then his face turned bright red below its deep tan, all the way from his collar bones to the tips of his absurd ears, and again she Felt embarrassment, but it did not mask his joy and amazement. She felt her own face redden, also. She looked away quickly.
No one had ever called her beautiful before like that and meant it, and he did mean it.
Want you! his emotions said. Want you! Want you!
Even the lustful Wide had not projected desire as strong as that, and she thought it should have repelled her when coming from this Leéb as much as it had from him. But it didn’t. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t Wide’s want-you-to-make-me-happy. It was different and it reminded her of the wanting she had felt from Sheel when she cuddled and nursed her baby. It was a want-you-to-make-you-happy wanting—tenderness! She had never felt that from any man before. A little from her mother, maybe. But not the same.
When she dared look up, Leéb was staring at the ground, awkwardly scratching the swelling ant bites on his bony ribs. The wanting was overlain by continuing embarrassment and self-contempt at what he had said—but it was still there.
“If you can rescue your sandals,” she said, “and your hat—I’ve got some food we can share.”
He blinked at her. “Thaïle? Thaïle, you said?”
She nodded.
“That’s a lovely name…” He was regarding her short hair with hope. “Goodwife Thaïle?”
“No. Just Thaïle.”
He closed his eyes as if saying a prayer to the Gods.
“Get your shoes, Leéb,” she said. “And tell me about it.”
They sat in the burning sunlight and chewed the bread together. They took turns biting chunks off the chicken leg; and Leéb talked. And talked and talked and talked.
There was only one thing he could talk about, the Place he had found. It was by the river, he said, on a hidden backwater. There were trees of all sorts. There was a very ancient well that he could easily clean out. There was open ground that had once been a rice paddy and could be again and would feed a huge family all by itself. There were fish galore! There was firewood and masses of withes to make wicker, which was all that was needed for a house in the valley. He was very good at weaving and he would make a big house! There were fruit trees running wild, and berry bushes. There was sweet grass for goats to give milk for, er, kids—he turned red again at that point—and an old couple lived about half an hour away, who would be pleased to have a young family in the neighborhood and who would lend them an ax and all sorts of other things to help them get started and probably leave them most of their household goods when they died, because their children all lived a long way away now…
It was perfect, he said. It would make the finest Place in all Thume. And his Feelings said that she would fit right in.
“Look out for the ones that fall in love quickly,” her mother had once told her, “because they can fall out again just as fast.”
Not Leéb, she thought. She had Feeling and she knew that what he was suffering wasn’t just lust, although there was certainly a flattering amount of that included. Leéb was sure that he had found the perfect place to be the Leéb Place and then he had found the perfect woman to share it with, the very next day. If a man believed in the Gods, he must believe in this.
At last Leéb ran out of superlatives, and after that he just sat and stared at her in blissful wonder.
She explained that she had been visiting her sister and was on her way home.
“But you’ll come and see my Pl—come and see the place?” he begged.
He wasn’t what she had ever imagined. He did not have bulgy arms and broad shoulders. He was skimpy and far from handsome. Homely at best! But she had Feeling and she had never Felt a man like him, or at least not one who felt what he did, for her. A gentle, loving boy, who laughed when he should have been angry. A boy who did not take himself seriously, but took her very seriously indeed and wanted to make her happy.
She wanted to weep. She could not bear to tell him about the College, or tell him that she must soon go away.
She shook her head.
Again he blushed. “Oh, I know we’ve just met!” he said. “I wouldn’t expect… Not so soon… I mean, all I wanted was to let you see. And think about it, of course. I don’t expect… that!”
She shook her head again. That wasn’t the problem at all. If he showed her this Place and it was one-tenth as good as he said it was, she was going to accept Leéb right there—bare bodies on the grass. She was sure of it. And that would never do, not when she had to go away.
But she could not bring herself to tell him the terrible truth, because then he would go out of her life forever and she thought she had found something as precious as the Place he had found, even if she could not keep it very long.
When in doubt, ask your mother. That was another of her mother’s sayings.
“Why not come to the Gaib Place and meet my parents?” she said at last.
For Leéb, that was the second-best thing she could have said. Long before evening, they were walking hand in hand.
3
Prince Holindarn of Krasnegar was having breakfast, again. He liked to have several breakfasts, to prepare him for as many lunches as h
e could persuade his mother to provide. If greed was the criterion, Holi was definitely impish.
Looking down at him as he sucked busily and kneaded her breasts with his tiny fists, Inos was trying to decide whether his nose was really faunish, or if that was just a normal baby nose. As usual, she decided that she neither knew nor especially cared. He would definitely do. Impish or not, he was growing like a jotunn. It was all these breakfasts.
Whatever illusions the rest of the world might have about springtime, Krasnegar knew better. The days were growing longer, but arctic winter still held the castle in its dark embrace. Yet another blizzard was howling around the castle, and once in a while the great fireplace would puff out an eye-stinging cloud of smoke. The queen was sitting with her feet almost in the hearth, her back turned to the great hall for privacy. Meanwhile the life of the palace went on around her, servants coming and going, everybody carefully pretending not to notice what her Majesty was doing.
She wondered how many reigning monarchs behaved so casually and managed to get away with it. Her parents, even, would have been shocked, and they had never been known to stand on ceremony. Queen Evanaire had certainly never nursed Princess Inosolan in public like this.
The source of all the informality was sitting beside her on the bench, facing the other way and supposedly watching what was going on at the far end of the great chamber, but once in a while sneaking admiring looks at her bodice. He was quite within his rights to do so, and she enjoyed his attention.
Rap had returned the previous day from a seal hunt—beating the blizzard to the door by about three hours—and it was wonderful to have him back. She was also glad to see that he was in a cheerful mood. Something had been bothering him ever since Winterfest. Rap was not normally a brooding type. She wished he would get it off his chest, but she was not going to pry. He would speak up when he was ready.
