The house of the Gifted turned out to be some way distant from the academy, set within a tall walled compound with secure gates—something Karik had only seen in Utuk, and he wondered if it was to keep people out or in. As they approached, the gates swung open. Kei shook his head. “Reis is showing off again,” he said with a sigh. “Come on.”
But Karik wanted to stand and stare at the beautiful building a little longer. It was all in brilliant white stone, with huge, almost impossible windows. Up one side a large flowering vine sprawled over the stone, and here and there were bright flashes of metal work around the windows and the doors, but it was the fact it was so enormous, so incredibly tall, that took one’s breath away. “Close your mouth, son,” Pa said with a grin. “It’s really something, isn’t it? It was all built by the Gifted themselves—it’s very old.”
The House made that belonging to the Rulers look positively shabby, and Karik continued to stare at it as his father guided him up the path. Kei and Jena had walked on ahead of them, and Neka greeted them at the door. “Come in, everyone, we’re all in the indoor garden.”
“Indoor garden?” Karik mouthed at his father.
“You’ll see. Come along, it’s rude to keep people waiting.”
Inside, the house was as beautiful as it was on the outside—full of light and delicate decoration, with several large portraits on the walls whose subjects almost seemed about to walk off the canvas. Karik had never seen pictures so realistic before, and none made with such skill, even in the House of the Rulers. Neka turned to look at him staring at everything in awe. “I think we’ve broken your son,” she joked to Jena.
“I’m stunned as well. The new pictures—Meda’s work?”
“Those two are. She’s really improved since you were here last.”
“Reji!” Karik turned and saw a lanky, cheerful-looking man come bounding over to his father and take him into a hug. “So good to see you again—and look, Jena!” She was squeezed enthusiastically. “You’re just the same. I could eat you!”
“Well, if you did that, Reis, there wouldn’t be anything left for the others,” Jena said with a grin. “Karik, this is Reis. Reis, Karik, my son.”
Karik bowed, not quite sure of the etiquette, but Reis giggled and covered his mouth. “Oh, he’s so cute. I wish everyone would bow to me like that.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Kei said fondly. “Karik probably doesn’t know whether he’s up or down right now.”
Reis came over to Karik and took his hand just as easily as Keiji might, for all Reis was easily Kei’s age. “Hello, Karik—Kei’s told us so much about you. Would you like to see something wonderful?”
“Huh?”
“Go on, son,” his father said with a twinkle in his eye. “Reis is quite safe, I promise you.”
“Oh, I am. Hold on,” Reis said, and then to Karik’s astonishment, they both rose off the ground. He hung on tight to Reis’s hand and tried not to look as terrified as he felt.
“You’re such a show off,” Neka said, as Reis and Karik floated above her head. “The poor child has only just got here.”
“I just wanted to show Karik the garden and the view,” Reis said, pouting. “Can I, Jena? Please?”
“If Karik would like that, why not?”
Reis turned his bright smile on Karik. “Would you like to see the view from the roof?”
“Yes, p-please.” At least it would be an unusual way to die.
Reis’s smile grew blindingly bright. “See you later!” he called to the people left on the ground. He took Karik ever higher, before lifting them through an upper window which swung open before them, and out into the air.
“I d-didn’t know you could f-fly,” Karik said, hoping Reis wouldn’t drop him, but at the same time, already eagerly looking about him as they rose gracefully over the House, a hundred feet or so into the air.
“I can do lots of things, but this is the one I love the most. Do you like it? Do you like to fly?”
“Yes,” Karik said firmly, staring at all he could see from this astonishing height. The sea was a crystal blue, sparkling in the sun, and on the shore, he saw the roofs of the academy and the House of the Rulers, and when he turned, the long, wide Darshek plain could be seen even more clearly than from the mountain road, distant sandy beaches dazzling white against the blue water. “It’s wuh-wonderful.”
“Let’s go higher!”
“Reis, Jena says don’t get carried away and she wants Karik back inside within half an hour.”
Reis pouted at Karik. “All right. We’re just having some fun, Neka.”
“I know, darling. Just don’t scare his parents, all right?”
“I won’t!” Reis looked at Karik. “I won’t hurt you. But Neka was sure you would love to see everything from up here.”
“I do. I’m fuh-fine.” He looked Reis in the eye. “H-higher?”
“Yes! Let’s go up!”
And so they did, and even though Karik’s stomach lurched a little, he was lost in amazement and wonder at the effortlessness of what Reis was doing, and all he could see. They were even above the birds now, and the ships in the harbour looked like toys. From here, he saw the whole Kislik range and he wondered, if they rose high enough, if they would see the plains. “It’s so beautiful,” Reis sighed. “I love to fly, but I love to have people with me too. Meda doesn’t really like being so high, and Neris gets cranky if I take him too often.”
“M-Meda? Neris?”
“My lovers—I hope they like you, Karik, then we can do this again! Maybe Meda will make waterspouts for you.”
He had two lovers? “But I h-have to go huh-home in a week.”
“Oh.” Reis’s bright smile dimmed. “Well, never mind, we can still have some fun. Come and see the garden—there’s something special you can see if you look at it from above.”
And so it was—the garden was enormous, almost three times the size of the academy’s, but it wasn’t that what Reis had been talking about. At the very heart of the garden was a large raised area, where the beds, shrubs and flowers formed an intricate picture, a flower that Karik didn’t know—it might be imaginary, he supposed. It wasn’t just the position and colour of the flowers which formed the pattern—it was the shade of the leaves too, some more silvery green, others red-tinged, which seemed to give the image depth and reality. Someone on the ground would never realise the pattern existed. “It’s c-clever.” He’d never heard of anyone doing anything like this before.
“Isn’t it? It’s very old, even older than Wyma. It takes a lot of work to keep it pretty, but we all help. The best thing is that the picture changes—in the summer, it looks like a different flower again. Do you like flowers, Karik?”
“I l-like plants. And ah-animals. A-All kinds of s-stuff.”
“Then you have to see this,” Reis said, and then they were swooping up past the tall timkir trees to float over their crowns. “You have to be very quiet,” he whispered, “or they run away.” He brought them down a little and pointed to a ball of interwoven twigs set high at the top of one of the biggest tree. “Wait.”
So Karik did. He had a suspicion of what this was, though he’d only ever read about it.
They had to wait a few minutes, but finally there was a movement at the small entrance to the nest—a long, agile nose, followed by a grey-furred head, and then quite suddenly, the whole body of a tree merko. No, not just one—a whole family, flinging themselves out of the nest on their outstretched wings and jumping down the tree in search of their prey, the youngsters perfect miniatures of their mother, little sails of fur flying gracefully through the air.
Karik was beside himself with delight. He’d heard of tree merkos and had longed to see one, and now he’d seen a whole family. They were even more wonderful than the books said. “Let’s look in the nest,” Reis whispered, and brought them with delicate precision to a branch near the nest. “What’s inside?”
Karik was careful not to touch it, s
ince ground merkos were so fussy about their nest sites being disturbed. “I c-can’t really see, b-but there’s fuh-fur. I think the m-mother lines the nest with her own.”
“Goodness,” Reis said in surprise. “I didn’t know they did that.” He lifted them back above the trees. “I’m the only one who sees them usually. They’re so cute, and the babies are just like....” He held two fingers up about half an inch apart, which was a slight exaggeration. “Every year I come to see them. I knew you’d love them. Kei told us what you were like, and so did Neka. They were so worried when you disappeared. Poor Neka didn’t get a wink of sleep for two days.”
“I’m s-sorry.”
Reis ruffled his hair and grinned. “Oh, it’s all right. Jera looked after her, and then you came home again. Kei was so sad though, while Arman was away. We were very worried about him,” he confided. “He’s not so bad this time, but he’s still lonely, I think. Do you think that?”
“A little.”
“Maybe I should show him the tree merkos to cheer him up.”
“H-He’d like that, Reis.”
“Then I will. Come and stand on the roof so you can say you did it.”
Reis was just a big child at heart. If there was an ounce of harm in him, Karik would eat his shirt. Reis brought them to stand on the huge metal roof of the house, and once again Karik got a wonderful view of the sea. “The first time I saw you, you were just....” He made the same measurement as he had for the baby merkos. “Cute as a bug. Well, cuter than a bug really. Bugs aren’t cute. You probably don’t remember me, do you?
Karik laughed. “No, s-sorry. You wuh-went to Utuk?”
“Lots of us did. I got horribly sick though—I don’t like sailing at all. But then Jera and Meda and I had a lot of fun with the Prijian boats and things in the harbour. Nobody got hurt,” he added in a worried tone, as if Karik might think this was so. “We were careful.”
“I’m s-sure.” Karik wished he’d been old enough to have seen it. The little he’d heard of that battle made it sound like the most astonishing thing a person could witness. “Wuh-what do you do now?”
“Now? Oh, lots of things. We help the Rulers, and move stuff around, things that are too heavy for the beasts, or that they want to go somewhere dangerous or high up. I’ve been busy with this stupid harbour development they’re building, the one that makes Arman swear so much. I like helping with that kind of thing, but I like flying better. Only thing is, I’m not supposed to frighten people by flying too much in the daytime.” He whispered in Karik’s ear, “But sometimes Neris and I fly at night, really high and Neris lights a flame, just a little one.” He cupped his hand to show the size. “People probably think it’s a shooting star. Flying at night is the most amazing thing—the stars are so close, and you could almost touch the moon. Would you like to come with us one night—I mean, before you leave?”
“Yes, I wuh-would.” Already Karik was trying to imagine how it would feel to soar against the inky black of the sky, as light as a bird.
“You’re not scared?”
“A l-little. But not now.”
“Good.” Reis sank down and sat cross-legged on the metal surface. “It’s so beautiful here, but one day, I want to fly all along the range, and see what that’s like.”
Seeing his companion wasn’t going to be moving soon, Karik joined him on the roof. “Wuh-where are you from?”
“From? Here, of course. That’s now, I mean. I don’t know where I was born.”
“Huh-how can you n-not know that?”
Reis rested his head on his chin and looked at Karik. “Um, well, I don’t know where I came from. One day a man turned up at the Rulers’ house and said this boy is for you and then he left. And that boy was me, you see. But I can’t remember it—I was only five.”
Karik blinked. “Fuh-five?”
“Uh huh. It happens to a lot of us. Neris was seven, but he can remember that a barn caught fire, so they were probably scared of him. I don’t remember what I did but it must have been naughty. People don’t understand, you see. They don’t know we can’t control ourselves until we know what’s happening, and little children don’t. So the parents get scared and bring us to the Rulers to deal with.”
Karik stared, his mouth open in horror. “Don’t you mind?”
Reis’s cheerful expression slipped. “I used to,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have nice parents like you have, but then I remember about Neris and Meda, and Neka and Jera and Kira and Wyma and all the others, and then I know it’s all right. It’s harder for the ones who come here when they’re older, because they remember, you see. Seiki remembers her Ma and it makes her sad. People don’t get so scared of the soul-touchers and the mind-speakers, so they don’t try and get rid of them so soon. But eventually they think it’s creepy and they’re glad to send their children to us. It’s for the best,” he said quietly. “No one understands what it’s like. And some people hate us for being different. Before the settlement, they used to kill any Gifted they discovered. Now people don’t do that, because they can send us here. And it’s really nice here. We’re not different when we’re with others like us.” He raised a hand and gently touched Karik’s hair. “You know what it’s like? To feel different?”
“Y-yes. Before I l-left, I was hurt. B-beaten up.”
“I know, Kei said, though he asked us not to mention it unless you did. People are stupid, don’t you think? To be scared of a little fellow like you who can’t even drop rocks on them?”
“I wuh-wish I could dr-drop rocks on s-some of them,” Karik said with feeling which made Reis smile. “R-Reji and Jena aren’t my r-real parents. My r-real parents g-gave me away.”
Reis sighed. “Then they weren’t your real parents, were they? Like mine weren’t. I know they probably weren’t bad people, but they’re not my mother and father anymore. If I met them now, what would I say to them? I’m not angry about what they did, but I’m not interested in them either. I cried when Jil died, but if my mother died, I wouldn’t cry.”
Karik guessed ‘Jil’ was the late Lady Jilki. “I uh-understand. But it’s s-sad.”
“Well, if you look at it from one way, it is. Neris gets mad sometimes and we know it’s because he’s thinking about his family. But all we have to do is give him lots of cuddles and then he’s all right again. He wouldn’t leave us for them, because he loves Meda and me. You wouldn’t leave Reji and Jena for those people, would you? Reji and Jena really love you. When Reji comes up to see Kei, he talks about you all the time, and he’s so proud of you. If I had a father, that’s what I’d want.”
Despite his protestations that he didn’t really mind what had been done to him, the melancholy in Reis’s last words made Karik want to hug him, so he did, to Reis’s surprise. “There, there, Karik, don’t mind me. It’s just how things are for the Gifted, and we have a good life here. We have friends, and people who love us. I wouldn’t want to lose all that just to go and live like a normal person. Because I’m not normal and I don’t want to pretend I’m something I’m not. People can accept me for what I am or they can throw themselves in the harbour. Or Jera can,” he added with a wink. “He’s meaner than me like that.”
Not such a child after all. Just blessed with an open and accepting heart that was nearly as great a Gift as his mind-moving. “I think you’re wuh-wonderful. Your p-parents lost a l-lot.”
“I wonder sometimes if they’re sad, when they think of me. But they probably just pretend it’s like I’m dead.” He heaved a heavy sigh, but then smiled at Karik. “We should go now. You’ll want to meet the others, and Wyma too. Wyma is the nicest person in the world. I just wish he wasn’t so old. I know I’ll miss him a lot when he dies.”
What could Karik say to that? There was nothing for it but to give the man another hug. Then Reis stood and took his hand. “Here we go!”
He took them to the side of the building and the meaning of the ‘indoor garden’ immediately
became clear as they approached the huge glass topped roof. The windows in it were too small to fly through, so they landed on the ground and entered more sedately, finding Karik’s parents and Kei seated with nearly a dozen other people, two of whom immediately rose to come and claim Reis. Meda and Neris, Karik guessed, though which was which, he didn’t know. Reis kissed the two of them and then led Karik over to where an incredibly elderly man with snow white hair and kind eyes, sat in a large chair. Kei was seated to his right, but stood. “Karik, I’d like you to meet Wyma. Wyma, this is Reji and Jena’s son, Karik.”
“I’m p-pleased to meet you,” Karik said politely, and bowed.
Wyma didn’t seem to think that level of respect was out of place. “Sit down, my son,” he said in a quiet, commanding voice. Karik obeyed, sitting on a cushion Ma hastily pushed over to him, and waited for the man’s pleasure.
Wyma was in no hurry, staring at him without the least embarrassment for several minutes, and no one spoke a word while he carried out his inspection. Karik knew nothing of what Gifted soul-touchers could do or what they could tell. He hoped he didn’t seem unpleasant to the man.
At last Wyma smiled at him. “Don’t be so nervous, child. Did you enjoy your flight with Reis?”
“V-Very much. We saw tr-tree merkos f-flying.”
“Tree merkos? Oh, Reis, you never said they were out of the nest,” Kei said, wagging his finger.
“Sorry, Kei. Karik said I should show you. Want to do that now?”
“Not right now, no, but I’d love to see them. Oh, sorry, Wyma,” Kei said, putting his hand over his mouth.
“That’s all right, my son. I know you have no manners,” Wyma said, his aged eyes twinkling with amusement. “I trust you don’t copy him, Karik. Arman is always much more polite than Kei. I wonder why that is.”
“Probably because he was taught proper etiquette and I learned everything from urs beasts,” Kei joked. “Karik has better manners than me, don’t worry.”
Falling From the Tree (Darshian Tales #2) Page 45
