Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 02] - Owlsight Page 12

  He changed quickly, retaining only the new silver belt from his wedding costume, and sprinted back down the corridors, tracking the scents with his nose in the air like a hungry hound.

  A short time later, blissfully nibbling on a square of pastry wrapped around a filling of finely chopped nuts and honey, he felt ready to join the rest of the Vale. He strolled out into the open and started back toward the dyheli meadow.

  Darian stopped long enough to listen to one of the solo musicians, then obtained something to drink from a passing hertasi and went on to his destination. Arriving just in time for the tervardi to begin singing again, he sat himself down near the platform on the soft grass and proceeded to lose himself for some undefined length of time while the music created fantasies in his mind.

  When he emerged from the spell that the music cast on him, he found that he had company. Beside him, with her blue eyes still filled with the dreams that tervardi singing sent into her mind, was Summerdance.

  He had not seen her for the last few days, but that was no great surprise, as they had both been working on the wedding preparations and their errands hadn’t overlapped. In addition, she was apprenticed to Steelmind, the specialist in plants who was the caretaker (among other things) of most of the garden spots in the Vale, including the herb garden. As a consequence, she hadn’t had any free time over the past three or four days.

  He was happy to see her at last, and glad that he had changed into what had been his “best” outfit until he got the one for the wedding. She certainly looked spectacular, gowned in something silken that flowed over her, a waterfall of luminous fabric in several shades of green. She wore as ornaments a collar of braided gold, silver, and copper wire, with strands of crystal beads and feathers braided into her black hair.

  She smiled at him, and nodded her head at the platform. “What do you think?” she asked. “This is the fourth time I’ve heard this group; they travel among the Vales, and we try to get them to come once every year or so, but this is the first time they’ve come for a pledging.”

  He tried to come up with enough superlatives and failed. “It’s the kind of singing you hear in dreams and know you can’t reproduce when you wake up,” he said finally. “There’s nothing like it.”

  “And nothing more beautiful, except when a tervardi flock sings in chorus, and I’ve only heard that once,” she agreed. “I had to go to k’Treva for that, but it was worth the journey. I got to see them dance, besides singing. Do you dance, at all, in Valdemar?”

  “Every chance we get,” he laughed. “But if you’re asking if I, personally, dance—I do, and I learned a couple of dances from the team while I was with them, too. Is this an invitation?”

  “Well, the group is taking a break, so there isn’t anything going on here for a while,” she pointed out. “And it’s a lot more fun to dance when you have a partner. Round dances are all right for children, but couple dances and group dances are livelier and more interesting.”

  “That’s the truth,” he agreed as he stood up, then extended a hand to her to help her to her feet. He took the lead, since he knew where the dancing circles had been set up, and as luck would have it, the first one they came to was just starting a new set as they arrived.

  He soon saw how she had gotten her use-name; she was quick, graceful, light on her feet, and evidently untiring. He had no intention of quitting before she was ready, and found himself panting and with a raging thirst by the time the musicians paused for a break themselves. He was half afraid that she’d suggest finding one of the other dancing circles, but she took pity on him. Laughing, she led him to the side of the circle and left him for a moment, only to return with cool drinks for both of them.

  He didn’t know any of the people they’d been dancing with, but they all knew who he was—not so difficult since he was the only outsider in the Clan! With his brown hair and eyes he couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else, not when the only variation on blue eyes, golden skin, and black hair among Tayledras or Kaled’a’in was the blue eyes, golden skin, and white hair of mages who’d worked with Heartstone and node magic.

  Oh, not quite true—some scouts, if they had white hair, dyed it in patterns spring through autumn to camouflage themselves. But none of them had plain brown hair.

  For the most part, his erstwhile dancing partners were just as winded as he was, and the hertasi circulating among them with more of the refreshing mint-flavored drink soon found themselves emptyhanded. Summerdance was the only one who still had breath to talk; she introduced him to the other dancers, but he promptly forgot most of their names. He had just about caught his breath and cooled down when the musicians began again and she drew him back into the circle for another round.

  It wasn’t until after the third round was complete that she professed herself tired, and by that time his legs were getting wobbly. When she suggested a hot soak, he was only too happy to agree.

  But when she led him, not in the direction of the communal pools, but down a tiny, vine-shadowed path that threaded between trees away from the sounds of celebration, he started to wonder if she had something more than a soak in mind.

  Steady on, he told himself. She just might want some privacy rather than the mob.

  But things were certainly promising to be interesting....

  She stopped at a place where the path appeared to end, and parted a curtain of flowering vines. On the other side of the vines lay a bubbling pool, one fed, obviously, by the same hot springs that fed the communal pools. Beside the pool on a small stone bench was a thick pile of towels—well, why not? It wasn’t as if they were going to get rained on in the middle of a Vale!

  “Here, isn’t this better than jostling for a space with everyone else?” she asked, as she slipped unselfconsciously out of her dress and into the pool without making so much as a splash. He lost no time in following her example; the water was deliciously hot, and all of his tired muscles melted under its influence.

  Ah, there is no comparison with Errold’s Grove! he thought blissfully, as he closed his eyes and slumped until his chin touched the surface of the pool. Here I am, entirely alone with Summerdance, no one will care what we do or don’t do-she’s of age, I’m of age, that’s all there is to it. Back home, if anybody found me with a girl like this, her father would be hunting me down with a pack of male relatives and her mother would be making wedding arrangements.

  He took a peek out of one eye at Summerdance; apparently she wasn’t as inexhaustible as she’d been at pains to appear, for she was relaxing in the water with the same expression he’d been wearing. Beads of moisture collected on her forehead, and the hair around her face started to curl in the heat and damp.

  “Where are we, exactly?” he asked, having only a vague notion of how far they had gone.

  “At the farthest end of the Vale. My ekele’s up there.” She pointed straight up, and he followed her pointing finger with his eyes. Squinting upward through the rising steam, past vines and foliage obscuring everything, he made out a bit of staircase against a trunk, and what might have been a piece of floor. “I got tired of having to tramp forever to get a hot soak—or to have to tramp forever after I got a hot soak. When we got a reasonable amount of magic back, and I got to pick something I wanted, I picked this.”

  “Good choice,” he said, closing his eyes and leaning back again.

  But not before he’d managed to find a fresh blossom growing within reach.

  Now came the moment for internal debate. So, do I offer her a flower? In Tayledras terms, especially in a situation like this one, offering Summerdance a flower would express without words not just his admiration for her, but that he wanted to share decidedly more than just her platonic company. Chased, rather than chaste, as the saying went. It wasn’t that he was debating whether he wanted to offer her a flower, he was debating the etiquette of it. This was her pool, beneath her ekele; her territory, so to speak. So, did he make the first overture, or would it be polite to wait and see if she d
id? But what if she was waiting for him to express an interest? What if she would be disappointed and hurt if he didn’t make the offer?

  Of course, all this might be innocent, simply companionable. But among the Tayledras, being offered a flower didn’t imply acceptance, and she could always turn him down.

  I’m thinking too much. He reached out and picked the flower without opening his eyes, held it for a moment, then turned toward her. “Ah, Summerdance?”

  He opened his eyes as he spoke.

  Only to stare at her, seeing that she had just turned and was offering him a flower at the same moment.

  They stared at each other for a long breath, then broke into helpless laughter, leaning into each other’s arms for support.

  Then, when their laughter faded, they found other things to share.

  Sunset, normally all but imperceptible beneath the huge trees, was spectacular from Summerdance’s ekele high in the boughs of a tree on the edge of the clearing—and they were both in a position to appreciate and pay attention to the sight by then. Still, neither Darian nor Summerdance was prepared to end the celebration quite so early, so they collected themselves and their belongings and rejoined the dancing just as dusk fell. Special illuminations had been planned for after dark, effects that required magic, and Darian was happy to see that they appeared on schedule. Even though he wasn’t in charge of the entertainment, he had something of a proprietary interest in it.

  The main event was a display of underwater lighting, with constantly changing colors, beneath the cascades of one of the more elaborate waterfall-arrangements. It had three levels of falling water, with each of the three levels subdivided into additional cascades, all plunging into a small, but deep, pool, frequently used for acrobatic play and roughhousing. No one swam there tonight. Mage-lights glowed behind the falling water from within recesses in the rocks, and one in the bottom of the pool turned the foaming water into a froth of light. The clever mage who’d planned this was at hand to control the changing colors, so that no sequence was ever repeated.

  “You know,” Summerdance remarked, as they spotted Nightwind and Snowfire among those admiring the cascades, “I think it’s just as well that they already got their real pledging over with while all of you were out there—” she waved her hand vaguely in the direction of Valdemar. “If this had been their real pledging instead of an excuse for an enormous party, they’d have been missing all of this, or else they’d feel as if they had to pretend to enjoy it when all the while they really just wanted to be alone together. As it is now, this is just a celebration that happened to involve them, but it’s more like an anniversary party. So they can relax and enjoy it along with everyone else.”

  He realized at once that she was probably right; once Nightwind and Snowfire had given in to popular demand, they’d really managed to be quite relaxed about the entire occasion, far more relaxed than anyone else was, in fact. “Very perceptive!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have thought of that, but I think you’re right!”

  Summerdance shrugged. “I know my cousin,” she pointed out. “Look how utterly calm he’s been since they got out of their robes, and how he’s relaxed and gone along with the fun! They know their pairing is solid and is going to last. They don’t feel as if they have to prove how happy they are together to an audience of wellwishers, and now that the ceremony is over, they know they don’t have to be the center of everything anymore.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was you who was the trondi’irn in training and not Nightbird,” he teased, as the lights beneath the waterfall cascades changed slowly from blue to purple, en masse. “How did you figure all that out?”

  She elbowed him. “Just because I’m apprenticed to Steelmind, that doesn’t mean I think like a plant,” she chided. “How do you think he got the use-name of Steelmind, hmm? He watches everything and everyone, and doesn’t say much, but when he does, it’s worth listening to. He’s quite good at figuring people out, after all that observation. I’d like to think I’ve been learning that from him, too.”

  “I think you can bet on it,” he told her seriously, and was rewarded with a sparkling smile. “I also think you’ve got to be getting hungry by now.”

  “And you’re observant as well, or else you heard my stomach growling; let’s see what new goodies have been put out. There’s bound to be supper dishes by now.”

  She dashed off, casting a glance behind to see if he was following, and he responded to the challenge. They raced each other down overgrown, little-used paths to the guest lodges. Summerdance had a distinct advantage because she knew the Vale so well, but he had longer legs, so they burst out of the undergrowth neck-and-neck, and found themselves part of a goodly crowd of equally hungry folk crowding into the entrance to the main hall.

  By now Darian’s appetite had returned with a vengeance, and the wonderful aromas nearly drove him to distraction. A real meal had been spread out this time, with hot and cold dishes to choose from, instead of just snacks. Darian motioned Summerdance to go in ahead of him, feeling as if he would make a poor showing if he let hunger overcome manners. They took plates made of flat bread from a stack waiting at the side of the table, and heaped them with their choices; at Summerdance’s urging, Darian took portions of things he didn’t recognize. They stood together for a moment, looking around to see if there was anyone here that they knew, then spotted Nightbird. She sat in the middle of a congenial group of young men and women, most of whom were strangers to him. A few of Nightbird’s companions were younger than Darian was, but most were about the same age.

  As soon as they’d spotted her, she noticed them, and waved them over. They found a couple of unused cushions and sat down with the rest of the group.

  “Everyone, this is Dar‘ian,” Nightbird said, giving his name the Tayledras pronunciation. “Dar’ian, pay attention,” she continued. with a giggle. “I’m only going to introduce people once!”

  He paid quite careful attention to their names as Nightbird introduced her friends, and fixed names properly with the faces in his memory.

  Meanwhile, he ate, enjoying all the new flavors. It was all quite different, except the thick slices of meat—and even that was spiced in a way he’d never tasted before. Round puffs of pastry proved to be breaded and fried slices of vegetable, a green paste that Summerdance had greeted with enthusiasm was probably from another vegetable of some kind and made a fantastic garnish on just about everything, little red squares were not sweet, as he’d expected, but crisp and peppery. He wished he’d taken more of the flat round bread; it was wonderful when wrapped around the meat.

  He spent more time listening than talking; for one thing, it was the first time he’d seen so many of his age in one place. For another, he was interested in what they did, since no one was ever idle in a Vale to his knowledge.

  This was where he got some surprises. He had somehow gotten the vague idea that most Hawkbrothers were mages—that Snowfire and the other scouts were the exception. In a few moments, he learned that his perception was backward.

  “So what’s your next assignment?” Nightbird asked a group of three sitting close together in a way that suggested close friendship rather than an amatory grouping.

  “You’ll laugh,” said one of the two girls. “Mushroom hunting. The morels are coming up now, and the cooks want plenty.”

  Nightbird didn’t laugh, she shrugged. “You can’t always be the ones patrolling the border,” she pointed out with inescapable logic. “Especially not with seven scout groups in training at the same time. You were just lucky on your first assignment, and got the exciting one. Besides, the cooks aren’t the only ones who want morels!”

  “Exactly so,” agreed an older boy. “As I can tell you from my training last year. We spend more time hunting game and finding fungi than we do in patrols—and much, much more time in boring, uneventful patrols than in actually fighting anything dangerous.” He laughed. “As Whitehawk says, ‘Six weeks of boredom punctuated
by half a candlemark of sheer terror.’ I think I’ll volunteer for the next Valdemar expedition; at least they saw some action.”

  “Wouldn’t mushroom hunting be more in the line of hertasi?” Darian asked.

  “Not really,” the boy replied. “The hertasi have plenty of work here in the Vale, and we can hunt mushrooms and check up on the territory inside our border at the same time. Despite what they might tell you, they can’t do everything!”

  Darian discovered from the subsequent conversation that a little less than half of them, male and female both, were scouts or scouts-in-training—a generic job that included hunting and gathering foodstuffs found growing wild in the woods outside the Vale as well as patrolling the boundaries of k’Vala territory. Two were mages—farther along in their studies than he was, but since they had begun earlier, and had certainly applied themselves better, that was only to be expected. One was a weaver and worker with textiles, which rather surprised him, as he’d gotten the impression that the hertasi did most of the crafting work.

  But when he ventured to ask, he found out that the “trades,” so to speak, were practiced by as many Tayledras as hertasi. “Isn’t that dull compared with being a scout?” he asked tentatively.

  The weaver laughed. “You heard the others. Now that we’ve got most of the nasties cleared out, and it’s easy enough to discourage poachers, it’s scouting that’s boring! I love what I do, and my teacher is Silverbird, the weaver who made the wedding robes. How could anybody be bored, learning to weave works of art like that? I even get to spend as much time in the woods outside the Vale as any scout, because I’m also working with Azure-hart, the dyer, and we’re always looking for new colors.”