With Stars Underfoot

by Steve Miller

  So, there would be no Healing. Mil Ton sighed—Fen Ris. It was possible to feel pity for Fen Ris. He bought a moment to compose himself by repeating her inventory of the kitchen, then brought his eyes to her face and inclined his head.

  “Indeed, it took much longer than needful, to build this house. I worked on it infrequently, with long stretches between.”

  “But, why build it at all?”

  “Well.” He hesitated, then moved his hand, indicating that she should walk with him.

  “I began when I was still an apprentice. My mother had died and left the mountain to myself alone, as her father had once left it to her. There had been a house here, in the past; I discovered the foundation when I began to clear the land.” He paused and gave her a sideline look.

  “I had planned to have a garden here, you see—and what I did first was to clear the land and cut the path-ways…”

  “But you had uncovered the foundation,” she said, preceding him into the great room. She sat on the edge of the hearth, where she had been before. Fen Ris had himself perched precisely there on any number of evenings or mornings. And here was this woman—

  Mil Ton walked over to his chair and sat on the arm.

  “I had uncovered the foundation,” he repeated, “before I went away—back to the city and my craft. I was away—for many years, traveling in stories. I made a success of myself; my tales were sought after; halls were filled with those who hungered for my words.

  “When I returned, I was ill with self-loathing. My stories had become…weapons—horribly potent, uncontrollable. I drove a man mad in Chonselta City. In Teramis, a woman ran from the hall, screaming…”

  On the hearth, Endele per’Timbral sat still as a stone, only her eyes alive.

  “That I came here—I scarcely knew why. Except that I had discovered a foundation and it came to me that I could build a house, and keep the world safely away.”

  Oh, gods, he thought, feeling the shape of the words in his mouth, listening to his voice, spinning the tale he meant, and yet did not mean, to tell…

  “I built the house of cedar, and laid the beams by hand; the windows I set tight against the walls. At the core, a fireplace—” He used his chin to point over her shoulder. “Before I finished that, the Healers came to me. News of my stories and the effects of my stories had reached the Masters of the Guild and they begged that I come to be trained, before I harmed anyone else.” He looked down at his hand, fisted against his knee, and heard his voice continue the tale.

  “So, I went and I trained, and then I worked as a Healer in the hall. I learned to write stories down and they did not cause madness, and so took up another craft for myself. I was content and solitary until I met a young man at the skimmer track.” He paused; she sat like a woman hewn of ice.

  “He was bold, and he was beautiful; intelligent and full of joy. We were friends, first, then lovers. I brought him here and he transformed my house with his presence; with his help, the fireplace went from pit to hearth,”

  He closed his eyes, heard the words fall from his lips. “One evening, he came to me—we had been days apart, but that was no unknown thing—he followed the races, of course. He came to me and he was weeping, he held me and he told me of the woman he had met, how their hearts beat together, how they must be united, or die.”

  Behind his closed eyes he saw image over image—Fen Ris before him, beseeching and explaining, and this woman’s wall of stone, matching texture for texture the very hearth she sat on.

  “Perhaps a true Healer might have understood. I did not. I cast him out, told him to go to his woman and leave me—leave me in peace. I fled—here, to the place which was built for safety…”

  “How did you abide it?” Her voice was shrill, he opened his eyes to find her on her feet, her body bowed with tension, her eyes frantic. “How did you abide loving him? Knowing what he does? Knowing that they might one day bring his body to you? Couldn’t you see that you needed to lock yourself away?”

  His vision wavered, he saw stones, falling, felt wind tear his hair, lash rain into his face. In the midst of chaos, he reached out, and put his arms around her, and held her while she sobbed against his shoulder.

  Eventually, the wind died, the woman in his arms quieted.

  “I loved him for himself,” he said softly, into her hair. “And he loved the races. He would not choose to stop racing, though he might have done, had I asked him. But he would have been unhappy, desperately so—and I loved him too well to ask it.” He sighed.

  “In the end, it came to my choice: Did I bide and share in our love, for as long as we both remained? Or turn my face aside, from the fear that, someday, he might be gone?”

  In his arms Endele per’Timbral shuddered—and relaxed.

  “As simple as that?” she whispered.

  “As simple, and as complex.” Words failed him for a moment—in his head now were images of Fen Ris laughing, and of the ocean waves crashing on stone beneath the pair of them, of arms reaching eagerly—

  He sighed again. “I have perhaps done you no favor, child, in unmaking the choice you had made, if safety is what you need above all.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, and straightened out of his embrace, showing him a wet face, and eyes as calm as dawn. “Perhaps not.” She inclined her head. “All honor, Healer. With your permission, I will retire, and tend my garden of choices while I dream.”

  He showed her to the tiny guest room, with its thin bed and single window, giving out to the moonlit garden, then returned to the great room.

  For a few heartbeats, he stood, staring down into the cold hearth. It came to him, as from a distance, that it wanted sweeping, and he knelt down on the stones and reached for the brush.

  “Mil Ton.” A woman’s voice, near at hand. He stirred, irritable, muscles aching, as if he had slept on cold stone.

  “Mil Ton,” she said again, and he opened his eyes to Endele per’Timbral’s pale and composed face. She extended a hand, and helped him to rise, and they walked in companionable silence to the kitchen for tea.

  “Have you decided,” he asked her, as they stood by the open door, inhaling the promise of the garden, “what you shall do?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “Have you?”

  “Yes,” he answered—and it was so, though he had not until that moment understood that a decision had been necessary. He smiled, feeling his heart absurdly light in his breast.

  ”I will return to Solcintra. Tereza writes that there is work for me, at the Hall.”

  “I am glad,” she said. “Perhaps you will come to us, when you are settled. He would like it, I think—and I would.”

  He looked over to her and met her smile.

  “Thank you,” he said softly “I would like it, too.”