Valdemar 11 - [Owl Mage 02] - Owlsight Page 19

  Now that he knew what they were for, the “primary exercises” in energy manipulation were far easier than they’d been earlier this afternoon, and he ran through them accurately, if not quickly. For the last one, he guided energy from the tree he sat beneath to a particular runnel rather than allowing it to flow into several as it would normally have done, and this time nothing escaped his “herding.”

  “Clean,” Firefrost approved. “Very clean. I couldn’t have done it better. Let’s get ourselves back home, shall we?”

  He got to his feet and aided Firefrost to hers. She was as much Starfall’s senior as Starfall was Darien’s and, until Darian arrived, the only Healing-Mage that k’ Vala had. She had greeted his arrival with relief—and pleasure, when she learned his potential.

  She was the kindest and most patient of his three teachers, although Starfall ran a very near second. If his unknown Healing-Adept teacher was half as easy to get along with as Firefrost, Darian thought that he would count himself lucky.

  The other teacher, Adept Darkstone, was much more difficult to like. He gave Darian his full attention, true, and was absolutely punctilious in giving Darian the most precise and accurate instructions, but it was all done without any feeling whatsoever. Darian still didn’t know a thing about Darkstone’s background, not even something so minor as which tree his ekele was in, and he’d been getting lessons from the Adept for a week.

  The one thing that he did know was the single thing Darkstone made clear at the very beginning; the Adept was entirely against the idea of working with Valdemarans in any way. He did not want outsiders in the Vale, around the Vale, or even aware that the Vale existed. He wanted Hawkbrothers to be a frightening presence in the forest, a glimpse of eyes in a shadow, the warning arrow out of nowhere.

  Darkstone wasn’t the only Tayledras who felt that way, though all the ones that Darian had met so far had treated him with distant courtesy at least. There was, after all, a tradition of Tayledras accepting the occasional outsider into their ranks and Clans. The thing that this particular faction opposed was the wholesale “adoption” of Valdemar on the same basis as the Kaled’a’in.

  Hard as it was to believe, there was even a faction that didn’t want the Kaled’a’in in k’ Vala Vale! Their reasoning was a bit obtuse, along the line that “if the Goddess had wanted k’Leshya back with the Tayledras, the Goddess would have led them to us after the Sundering.”

  Useless to argue that this was precisely what had happened—if a bit later than they would have preferred. This lot no more wanted trondi‘irn and gryphons in Tayledras Vales than they wanted Shin’a’in and their fighting mares in Tayledras Vales.

  Fortunately, Firefrost was as amused by them as they were outraged by her—and she had power and seniority in the Council over most of them.

  Even if she didn’t, she could probably reduce them to gibbering just by chuckling at them, tickling them under the chin, and telling them to “run along and learn to play nicely with the new children. ” He began to see that there were a lot of advantages to age, some of them enough to provide compensation for losing some of the advantages of youth!

  In deference to Firefrost’s age, they’d ridden here on a pair of dyheli rather than hiking on foot. The two does had wandered off somewhere, but Kuari had kept track of one, while Firefrost’s snow-white peregrine had followed the other. Now, without prompting, the birds came winging back, flying under the level of the branches, while the dyheli does sauntered along behind at a brisk walk. Darian offered his linked hands to Firefrost; with a half-bow of her own, she stepped into them, and he boosted her into the well-padded saddle, then hopped onto the other waiting doe. Firefrost avoided the elaborate robes some of the mages—Darkstone for one—liked to wear, and the intricate hairstyles as well. Long, easy-fitting tunics and loose trews of silks in simple colors were what she preferred, and she kept her hair in two braids or a coiled braid at the nape of her neck. Today she wore green, with a necklet of rainbow-moonstones, a single white primary from her bird fastened into her braids.

  “The other day someone asked me why I hadn’t changed my name for a use-name,” he told her, as they rode side by side. “I told them it was because I felt like the same person. Does that make sense to you?”

  “Perfectly sound, good sense,” she replied with a laugh. “Really, Dar’ian, the reason we change our use-names in the first place is because the ones we’re given as children don’t fit us when we become adults. Think about the use-names for the children you’ve heard—Blue-feather, Littleflower, Honeyfawn, Jumpfrog—who’d want to be saddled with something like that as an adult?”

  “Huh—or as an adolescent!” he countered, from the lofty vantage of eighteen. “So how do people get their adult use-names? Yours was given to you, right?”

  “Yes, and if you manage to do something notable at about the time you’re ready for an ‘adult’ use-name, that’s usually what you get. Sometimes you get tagged with something notable that happens when you’re ready for a new name.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement. “That’s how Starfall got his—it was at a Midsummer celebration, and he’d climbed to the top of a cliff overshadowing the main swimming pool at the Vale we had back then. This was on a dare, you see—the usual male foolishness over a girl—and he jumped from the cliff into the pool at precisely the same time as an extremely bright shooting star flashed overhead, mirroring his fall, even to the same angle. So—‘Starfall’ he became and has remained.” Her eyes crinkled up even more. “And the funniest thing about it is that because he was diving at the time and had all of his attention on the dive so that he wouldn’t break his silly neck, he never saw the falling star that gave him his name!”

  “Steelmind?”

  “He never forgets anything, and proved it by reciting to one of the Elders a speech he had made that was precisely contradictory to the position he supported at that moment.” She laughed. “Potentially embarrassing, but he didn’t do it in public. Nevertheless, the Elder in question told everyone that the boy had a mind like a steel cage—nothing that got locked into it ever escaped.”

  Darian grinned. “What about Darkstone?”

  “His personality,” she responded promptly. “Pessimistic, unchanging, and cold as a stone. And believe it or not, he chose it himself. It was an affectation when he was young; he liked that particular aloof image. Now he couldn’t change it without more effort than he’s willing to put in.”

  “Wintersky? Raindance? Summerdance?”

  “All juvenile names; they haven’t gotten use-names yet, and their childhood names weren’t so silly they were in a hurry to lose them.”

  “Hmm. Would anyone label me with a use-name that I don’t like, but am stuck with?” He could think of a number of unpleasant possibilities.

  “People can try, but if you refuse to respond to their name for you, it’s considered good manners not to persist. You know the proverb—‘It isn’t what you call me, it’s what I answer to that counts.’ ” She nodded with understanding at his obvious relief. “As long as you feel you are Dar’ian and continue to respond to that name, no one will force you to accept another.”

  At this point he certainly couldn’t foresee ever wanting to take a use-name. Not even if I were to do something really impressive.

  “Do remember if you do take a use-name that, after you’ve had it for many years, it becomes a great effort to change it again,” she cautioned. “Usually something very dramatic has to happen before the change sticks in people’s minds. I can’t think of more than two or three people who’ve successfully gone to a new use-name later in life.”

  By then, they’d reached the entrance to k ’Vala, and they discussed when and where they would meet for his next lesson. Once inside the Veil they dismounted and thanked the dyheli for their help; Darian escorted his teacher to her ekele, one that was quite low to the ground, by Tayledras standards. There he left her in the hands of her hertasi helpers, and decided to see if Nightbird or S
nowfire and Nightwind had eaten dinner yet, as he was in the mood for some company.

  I’ll try Kel’s sunning rock, he decided. That always seemed to be the place one or more of them ended up.

  Since he was in a very good mood, it came as an abrupt shock to him to walk straight into the middle of a fight between Snowfire and his beloved. He simply rounded a curve in the path, walked out into the open near the group of boulders that several gryphons liked to use for sunbathing, and there they were—

  Oh-oh.

  “—and no one is going to dictate whom I talk to!” Nightwind said, clearly and precisely, just as Darian stopped in his tracks. Her eyes, dark with anger, were the color of a thundercloud and looked just about ready to produce lightning. Her hands were clenched, her knuckles white, and her posture as stiff as an iron rod. For his part, Snowfire was actually white with rage, his eyes had gone to a pale gray, and his jaw was set so hard that Darian expected to hear his teeth splintering at any moment.

  It was even more of a shock to Darian since they were arguing in a place so very public. They’d argued before, even in his presence, but never where anyone could just walk into the middle of the spat.

  They were both using those sharp-edged, oh-so-civilized tones that meant they were really, really angry. They were both so caught up in their fight that neither of them paid the least attention to what was going on around them; he could have been a leaf, for all the attention they paid to him. Kel, wise young gryphon that he was, must have fled the moment the fight began.

  Darian was taken so much by surprise that he froze where he was—and it looked as though he wasn’t-the only one who’d been caught off-guard and trapped by the altercation. Nightbird stood with her back to the trunk of a tree, looking very much as if she were bound there and not much caring for it, on the other side of the line-of-battle from Darian.

  “Look, I told you what he said—and to my face!” Snowfire said between clenched teeth, his face set, his eyes blazing with white fire. “He’s lucky I didn’t call him out in front of the Elders for it! That’s reason enough for you to avoid him.”

  “No, it isn’t. And who are you to choose my friends for me?” Nightwind shot back, matching him glare for glare. “I am not going to give up friends I’ve had all my life, just because you can’t get along with them! He was my scouting partner all the way from White Gryphon, and I’m not going to act as if he’s come down with spots just because you got your precious masculine pride a little bruised! You don’t own me, and the last time I looked, the Tayledras didn’t keep slaves!”

  That was more than enough for Darian; he managed to catch Nightbird’s eye and made a little motion with his head in the direction of the path. She nodded violently and edged around her sister until she got clear of the pair, then made a dash for safety. He grabbed her hand as she reached him, and they both beat a quick retreat up the path.

  “What was all that about?” he asked as soon as they were out of earshot and felt as if they could slow down to a walk. “And how did you get caught in the middle?”

  “Lessons with my sister, with Kel serving as the willing client,” she said, a little out of breath. “Snowfire came charging into the middle of it without so much as an ‘excuse me’ and began ranting about a friend of hers.” She paused, then said carefully, “And if you don’t mind, I’d rather not name names.”

  He waved a hand at her. “Don’t worry, I’d rather not know!”

  “Well, the fellow in question is pretty well known among the Kaled ’a’in for saying stupid things without thinking and regretting it later,” she replied. “I guess that’s probably what he did this time. That, and I think there’s some jealousy there, too, since he used to be Nightwind’s partner, like she said, and the fact that she’d chosen to take someone else as her mate came as a nasty surprise.” Nightbird looked very, very worried, though she didn’t say anything more, and Darian had a fair idea why. She hadn’t seen her sister for four years, and probably thought this represented a truly serious rift between Nightwind and her mate.

  “So he’s been brooding about it and maybe today he was out-of-sorts and he said something rude to Snowfire.” Darian nodded. “And I bet Snowfire was out of sorts, too, so Snowfire was in no mood to be forgiving.” He sighed, then smiled reassuringly at her. “Don’t let this worry you. I’ve seen them fight before, you know. They don’t do it often, it’s always when both of them are on edge or feeling sensitive about something, and they always make it up afterward. Truly. Couples do this sort of thing; Nightwind says it’s because you can’t live life so much a part of each other without eventually doing or saying something that’s too irritating to ignore.”

  “Really?” Nightbird lost some of that anxious look.

  “Truly,” he told her firmly. “I’ve been caught in the middle of explosions just like that one. They’ll make it up. Especially if you can get whoever it was to come apologize. To both of them, if you can manage it.”

  “Me?” she squeaked. “Why me?”

  “Because you carefully didn’t tell me his name.” Darian was amused to see the expression on her face when she realized she was caught in a trap of her own making. “Besides, I’m not a Kaled ’a’in, and I am Snowfire’s little brother. I’m expected to be on his side. You, on the other hand, can go tell this fellow that he’s a blithering idiot and deserves to have Kel drop him into the lake from treetop height, and get away with it.” He put a little coaxing into his voice. “Look, you all but admitted that the fellow deserves it, and you are awfully good at dressing fools down in a way that rubs their noses in it. You’re also awfully good at making them admit that they were idiots.”

  “I am, aren’t I. I wonder if that’s an undiscovered power, the Gift of Insult.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then smirked. “You’re right this time. I’m the logical choice, and what’s more, I can make him feel so guilty about causing a fight at the same time I’m dressing him down that he’ll be begging me to help him make an apology.” She grinned suddenly. “I have every right to be the one to make him feel guilty, too—since I’m the one who got caught in the middle! You know, Sister always says I know how to work people around so well I ought to become a kestra‘chern instead of a trondi’irn. I just tell her that it would be no fun if I had to do it professionally.”

  “There you go!” he encouraged her. “Tell you what, I’ll arrange some dinner for both of us, you go give him what he’s got coming, and then come meet me at the far end of the lake and tell me what happened. I promise to heap admiration upon you.”

  “It’s a bargain.” She strode off, determination making her spine stiff, energy giving spring to her step, without looking back—probably because she was already rehearsing in her mind exactly what she was going to say. He chuckled a little, and went in search of food that would put her in a very good mood.

  She liked finger-foods—because what she liked was variety without getting filled up—so he hunted in a couple of the places where hertasi put out dishes for those who preferred to “graze” for dinner. When one of the hertasi learned what he was doing, things became a little easier, and he waited at the appointed spot with a special basket with a warm stone in the bottom of it to keep the steamed dumplings, sausages, and spiced fish-cakes hot, and a second basket with a chilled stone for the sliced vegetables, dipping sauce, and special rolls Nightbird particularly liked, made of boiled grain, thinly sliced fish, vegetables, and spices all rolled in seeds. Sweet spring water in a glass bottle chilled in the same basket, and hot tea in a pottery jug stayed warm in the first basket. And when Nightbird arrived, looking just a little smug, he rewarded her efforts by opening both baskets, handing her a huge leaf to use as a plate, and giving her first choice. Wonderful aromas rose from the first basket, and the contents of the second had been so artfully arranged by the hertasi that she actually paused to admire the creation.

  She went straight for the chilled grain-rolls, which was what he had thought might happen. That was p
erfectly all right with him, for he had no idea how anyone could eat the things; he helped himself to vegetables and steamed dumplings, and did not press her for details until after she’d had her first roll.

  “Well?” he asked archly.

  “He should be groveling in front of both of them now,” she said with supreme satisfaction. “And since they were already at the kiss-and-apologize stage when I left him with them, it should be even more gratifying for Snowfire. My sister will probably be exasperated with him, but she’ll forgive him, so all will be well.”

  “I told you they’d get over it pretty quickly,” he reminded her. “Havens, with any luck, Snowfire and this mysterious fellow will actually become friends out of this.”

  She nodded because her mouth was full, swallowed, and said, “That’s what I’m hoping, though it may actually take both of them trying to pound each other to powder before that happens. Why do some men have to be such idiots?”

  “Ask Tyrsell,” he suggested. “Seems to me there’s a lot of king-stag stuff going on there.”

  She snorted, and tried a dumpling for variety. “Well, I hope I never get caught in the middle of one of their fights again. It was so civilized, but so angry, it gave me chills! How can anyone fight like that?”

  “I don’t know; I think it must be something they’ve worked out. It’s pretty astonishing to watch, actually; not pleasant, but astonishing. I’ve never seen anyone argue that way before.”

  “Where do they get the self-control?” she asked, her brow wrinkling. “What have you seen them do?”

  “It’s what they don’t do. They don’t call names or make personal accusations. They get what’s making them angry out first thing, and you’d swear that they’re a short step away from killing each other! But then, they get into why it made them angry, they actually take turns and try not to interrupt, and then—and I think this must be the important part—go into exactly how bad this made them feel. And at that point, the fire just goes out of the fight! They get things sorted out, then apologize, get things more sorted out—then things are actually better than they were before the fight, I think, because they’ve made another compromise with each other.”