He bid the company good night and went striding out the door. After the door closed, the irreverent side of Gwynn reappeared and she turned to Selene. “Well at least he didn’t try to turn me into a frog like Shae said he might.”
“Oh, I’m certain he would be far more creative than that,” Selene laughed, “perhaps a nightingale or a skylark, but never a frog.”
Shae had been lost in Gwynn’s song. He did not speak Pathani, but her gift was such that he had understood every word without knowledge of the language. The similarities between Andine and Rashelle were striking, and Shae fought back the remembered grief.
“Elisan seems to think well of your charge.” Gunnar’s voice shook him from his thoughts. Shae followed his gaze and realized Gwynn was looking pale, which he had come to know was a sure indication that she was fatigued. He went striding across the room, Gunnar at his heels.
“Little one, you are exhausted. It is time you got some rest.” Gwynn started to protest, but Shae cut her off. “You did not sleep well last night, the journey here was not easy, and you just sang a long and difficult song. Furthermore, you’re probably going to have a longer day with Master Elisan tomorrow. Tell everyone good night now and go off to bed like a good little bard.” Shae was smiling, but there was iron in his voice.
“I keep trying to tell you I’m not a good little bard,”
Gwynn teased, but she got up obediently. She was finding it convenient to have someone who bullied her into taking care 176
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of herself. She said good night to the Ard Rhi and the Ard Rhian, thanking them for their warm welcome to Heralith.
Gunnar followed them to the door, telling Shae,
“Elisan will keep Gwynn busy tomorrow, and I am certain you will be bored senseless. Come drill with the guard. You will enjoy that much more than a day closeted with Master Elisan.” Shae promised to meet him and they bade him good night. Lesia was waiting for them when they returned to their chambers. She helped Gwynn out of her dress and brushed out her hair, again leaving her feeling very spoiled.
“I will bring breakfast in the morning with a large pot of snow mint tea,” Lesia promised.
“Oh yes, please do,” Gwynn called after her with a smile when she hopped into bed, “otherwise I’m the most terrible grump in the mornings.”
“I’d put out the light,” Shae said, “but I don’t know how.” “Oh that,” Gwynn yawned. She waved a hand toward the lamp and it winked out abruptly.
“You are getting good at that finger wiggling.”
“Do you mind? I mean really?” In the firelight, her gray eyes had a dim silver glow. “I know what you have said about magic and how Southrons feel about mages. What if magic does come to me as easily as everyone seems to think?
Will our friendship be in jeopardy?”
“Never!” Shae’s emphatic answer removed all doubts from her mind. “I would take oath that your gift for magic is the reason I’m still alive and able to call you my friend. If you turn out to be the greatest finger wiggler history has ever known, it will not change the fact.”
“Thank Ariadwen,” she sighed with relief. “I would hate to lose my best friend, because I can light some silly lamp.”
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“You won’t. Now, go to sleep,” Shae gently ordered.
“Yes, venchar.”
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CHAPTER TEN
Lesia brought Gwynn’s promised tea the next morning, which tickled her enough to smile within moments of rising. She envied those who were wide-awake the moment their eyes opened; she remained cloudy headed for some time after waking. Shae had nearly cleaned everything off the breakfast dishes by the time Gwynn finished her first cup of tea and gave her a teasing growl while she reached for a pastry.
“That’s the last one with that kind of filling,” Shae complained when Gwynn snatched it off the tray.
“I noticed you already had three. Are Southron children not taught to share?”
“Not food; we only want the strong ones to survive.”
Darion arrived later. He surveyed what was left of their breakfast and shook his head. “I must speak with Lesia about the appetite of a Southron. Otherwise, you are going to starve our poor Gwynn.”
“She may be little, but she’s quick enough, especially when it comes to pastries,” Shae told him complacently.
When Gwynn went to fetch her Harp, he followed her into the other room. “Are you sure about seeing Elisan alone today? I will come with you if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
“Master Elisan is not angry with me about the Harp.
Thank you, though. I will be fine and you will have much 179
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more fun with Gunnar. Think of it as a chance for you to train for the Wintertide Tournament—I would wager no Southron has ever had the chance to learn Pathani fighting styles.”
Shae did not hide the relief on his face. “If you are sure things will go well, then I will take Gunnar up on his offer. Chances are I wouldn’t understand what you were doing anyway.” He accompanied them to the courtyard where their horses were waiting. He gave Gwynn a leg up on Rogue, telling her like a child being sent off to her lessons,
“Behave and listen to Master Elisan. I don’t want you coming back as a frog. I’m going to see if the Pathani bruise like we mortals.” Shae’s voice was light, but he caught Darion’s eyes, making sure he understood the thinly veiled threat.
Darion grinned, unmoved by his words. “I will take good care of Gwynn and see to it that she comes home unchanged.”
Shae watched them disappear down the hill before going in search of Gunnar. He knew Gwynn was safe, but to let her out of his sight made him feel off balance. The thought intrigued him, because he remembered Kane saying once in Hasdran that the bond between a Lifeguard and their charge could develop to the point that being separated would cause them to not feel quite whole. Shae had never felt that way about his bond with Rashelle, and at the time, he had wondered if that meant he was not the right Lifeguard for her.
Now he knew better. It was simply that his bond with Rashelle did not have the depth that Kane had with Rayna or Shela and Laef had with their charges. The fault had not been with him. It was simply a circumstance of the situation.
He had been exactly the Lifeguard Rashelle had needed and 180
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that meant he had fulfilled his oath.
Gunnar hailed him when he entered the wardroom.
“Come, these lazy creatures under my command are still having breakfast. Help me roust them.”
“With pleasure.” Shae’s teeth flashed in his most wolfish grin; motivating lazy guards had always brought him great enjoyment in Hasdran. He followed Gunnar out into the mess hall, thinking that Pathani or not, those guards would learn what it meant to have a Southron under the same roof.
Elisan lived just outside of the city, his home nestled against a foothill and surrounded by an ancient fëanulia grove.
When Gwynn rode up with Darion, she thought it seemed like the fine country home of a wealthy merchant. There was no one to take their horses. Darion leapt from Freesa’s back before turning her loose. Gwynn dismounted, removing Rogue’s tack and setting it next to the house. They found Elisan in his workshop, directing an assistant in carving the neck of a lute.
“Ah, good morning, Gwynn. I welcome you to my home,” he said. “I have spoken with Darion and Navarre at length about the Harp. We have much to do, but I do not think you will find the tasks at hand difficult if what they say of you is true.”
“I hope you are right, Master Elisan. I would hate to disappoint you.”
He made a dismissing motion toward Darion. “Please Rhi, be off with you. You will be a distraction to her, just as you have always been to my pupils.”
“As you wish, venerable Master,” Darion laughed. He waved a warning finger under Gwynn’s nose. “I would tell you to be good, but I think your Southron
watchdog already gave you those instructions. I am sure you and Elisan will 181
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come to a better understanding of things without me about.”
Elisan bid his assistant to keep working and beckoned Gwynn to come with him. They passed into another room scattered with half-finished instruments and drawings. He sat down in a well-worn chair, telling Gwynn to take a seat beside him. He asked to see the Harp, caressing it gently after she handed it to him.
“I have always taken great pride in this piece. Talaysen and I worked side by side in its creation; none of my assistants ever touched it.” He looked at Gwynn, his gaze considering. “I have much to teach you. I have thought at length about how best to do so, and I realized that it could be done with music. The Harp is part of what you must learn. It will help us.” Elisan drew his hands down the strings, the glissando beckoning her closer. “Listen with your mind, your heart, and your soul, Gwynn. All that I sing of, you will learn and remember.”
Time and the world around her disappeared when she was seized by Elisan’s spell of song. It seemed to Gwynn that she stood nearby while Elisan and Talaysen oversaw the metal smith drawing the platinum into wires of the proper gauge for strings, then spelling them so they would never break. She saw the careful carving of the wood, the fitting of the intricate pieces, when the Harp was strung and Talaysen first tested its tone. Gwynn heard the underlying song that he and Elisan had held in their hearts in its creation. An understanding of the bond the instrument had with Talaysen grew. At some point, she found the Harp back in her hands, and she recognized she was singing the same song that she had just learned. She added verses, telling the Harp of her family history, how she was a descendant of one of its creators. A warmth of understanding and joy rose through the Harp and into Gwynn’s song. The Harp had yearned for 182
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Talaysen’s touch and fought her out of anger and longing for its old master. It did not understand the concept of death, and it had hoped to drive her to find Talaysen. Gwynn tried to help the Harp grasp what death meant. She explained that she was of Talaysen’s family and that she loved the Harp as he had.
When at last the music ended, Gwynn raised a radiant face to Elisan. “Thank you,” she whispered, resting her cheek against the Harp, “we are in harmony now.”
“You deserve each other. You are as gifted as Talaysen. We sought to create an instrument together that would be strong enough to meet the demands of his songs and the magic that would be channeled through it. I think that he set the conditions of its passage as he did, knowing that it would take another bard with gifts equal to his own to wield it. I’m certain he had no idea that the Harp’s feelings regarding another master should have been taken under consideration. I am heartsick to think of what it could have done to someone of lesser gifts attempting to play it.”
“It would have driven them mad. It nearly managed with me.” At her words, she felt remorse flow from the Harp. “It’s all right, neither of us understood,” Gwynn whispered and the dragon’s eyes flashed briefly in response.
“What do you think I should do? I would never wish to put someone in the same position, accidentally or otherwise. I’m mortal, just like Talaysen, what should be done with the Harp when I die?”
He sighed. “I don’t know Gwynn. Perhaps it should come back to Heralith or perhaps another bard will be born who can bear it. Maybe, when you feel the years begin to weigh upon you, you should return here with it, and the Harp will never again suffer such a grave loss.”
“I am of the Second born. That is not my right,” she told Elisan emphatically. “The Mother did not give humans 183
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immortality. Besides, don’t you think I would eventually go insane even here in the beauty of Heralith if I could no longer follow the road? What then, will the Pathani be my keepers while I rave away the ages? Shall I be the mad Bard of Heralith?”
“My dear child, Heralith is but a corner of this world.
There is far more to it than this city alone. I wish I had understood better what Talaysen and I were creating.
Perhaps it was my fault; I created the Harp as if it were for a Pathani, not a mortal.” He reached for Gwynn’s hand. “I promise you that we will search for the right answer together when the time comes. In the meanwhile, you must be exactly what fitan drives you to be, a bard with a very fine harp.”
“What is meant, will be,” Gwynn quoted her father’s favorite saying. She looked out the window, amazed at the angle of the light. It was late afternoon, and the day had passed in the blink of an eye. She smiled at Elisan. “Have I been a good pupil?”
“Excellent.” Elisan went to the door and called for food and drink. “I, on the other hand, have been a harsh taskmaster, allowing you nothing to eat or drink this day.”
“I did not even notice.”
They ate fresh bread with honey, and Gwynn slaked her thirst with the sweet cider tasting of almonds and cherries she would forever associate with the Pathani. After promising to see him again tomorrow, Gwynn left Elisan.
Rogue came at her whistle and she mounted to ride back to the city, turning over the day in her mind. The best part of it all, the Harp against her back no longer seemed a burden of responsibility. The weight was gone, replaced with a sense of joy and understanding that permeated her entire being. She nudged Rogue into a gallop down the road, the wind singing in her ears while they sped toward Heralith.
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Shae was stretched out in the sitting room of their chambers with his feet comfortably up on a stool. The day had a familiar feeling to the former Lifeguard, one that he had only just realized how much he had missed. Chivvying guards from the breakfast table into the practice yard over good-natured protests, putting them through drills and then crossing blades with opponents of equal skill brought back memories of the things about Hasdran Shae had loved the most. The swift quips he had exchanged over the top of his blade with Gunnar had an aching familiarity to them, so much so that once, he had almost called him by his brother’s name. He also had the pleasure of meeting Gunnar’s lieutenants, Tasarian and his wife Azrith. The violet eyed Tasarian was a master of the halberd and his swiftness with the cumbersome weapon was astounding. Azrith was the sister of Gunnar with the same green eyes. She reminded him of Shelah, and she fought with one of the gracefully curving Pathani swords, known as a rirani, in each hand.
After the mid-day meal, the four of them had returned to the practice yard to test each other some more. Shae had quickly decided that Gwynn had been right; training with the Pathani would be better preparation for the Wintertide Tournament than any he would find in the smaller arenas on the River Road. It probably equaled what Laef and Shelah had in Hasdran and was nearly what he would have benefited from at home in Southron.
There was a knock at the door and Shae opened it to find Azrith in the hallway. “How is your shoulder?” she asked with a smile. Shae rubbed his right shoulder ruefully where a livid purple bruise testified to the swiftness of Azrith’s attacks.
“Fine after a hot soak. How about your backside?”
Once, while sparring, Azrith had backed him into a corner, 185
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and Shae had ducked through her guard quickly enough to land a spanking blow across her unprotected back.
“I’ll probably like the cushion on my chair this evening more than I should,” she laughed.
“I don’t want to know what the two of you are talking about,” declared a voice from behind Azrith in the hallway.
She stepped aside and Shae saw that Gwynn had arrived back from Elisan’s and was shaking her head at him. “I can only imagine why you are talking to a woman about what you did to her backside.”
“It was a fight,” Shae and Azrith assured Gwynn in the same breath.
“Whatever you say.”
“I’m glad to meet you Gwynn,” Azrith said. “You are the true reason I was sent here, althou
gh I could not help but tease your friend a bit. Gunnar was wondering if you would play for the guards tonight. I can promise you a good dinner, plenty to drink, and a very attentive audience.”
“With little left to ask for, I would be happy to play,”
Gwynn said.
“We will see you after sunset then.” Azrith let herself out saying, “We are much less formal than a royal gathering.”
“I’m grateful for that,” Gwynn said.
“You’re in good spirits.” Shae noted the glow in his friend’s face. “I take it things went well with Elisan, today?”
“Better than I dared hope!” Gwynn exclaimed, hugging her Harp closely. She told Shae about her day, the words tumbling over themselves in her eagerness to explain.
“We understand each other now; everything just feels so right!” she finished. Then her eyes darkened a little. “Except neither Elisan nor I know what to do with the Harp once I’m gone.”
“Gone? From Heralith?”
“No. We don’t know what to do to safeguard it or 186
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another bard after my death. Elisan thinks that if another bard tried to play it, the Harp would drive them mad. He thinks that when I grow old and tired of our world, I should come here with it. Time as mortals know it stops while they are here.”
His blood ran cold to hear Gwynn speak so easily of her own death. He forced his voice to sound casual. “I’m sure there is another answer. Elisan seems very wise. He will find one.”
“One day, when I’m beginning to feel the weight of the years, eternal life might not sound like such a bad idea.”
Gwynn shrugged. “I’m hoping that the end of me is far in the future.”
“It will be, at least as long as you have me.”
“Then maybe I should keep you around forever.
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