The Outstretched Shadow ou(tom-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  "Idalia!" a familiar voice squealed, off to the right. There was a thud of hooves on the packed earth of the square as they turned toward the source of the voice, and Merana pranced to a stop in front of Idalia. "Oh, you've come to visit! And you've brought Kellen!"

  The young Centauress curveted like a restive filly as she turned to gaze flirtatiously at Kellen, but now he was prepared for her and her ways, and was able to keep his composure a little better than he had at their first meeting. He just smiled, and made sure that he kept Idalia between him and the apprentice Healer.

  By now a crowd had started to gather around the visitors, humans and Centaurs greeting Idalia by name and darting curious—and none-too-friendly—looks at Cormo. Evidently Cormo was not nearly as well thought of as he had boasted. Somehow, Kellen wasn't at all surprised.

  "Idalia." An old man in a long worn blue robe, its knees stained as if he'd been kneeling in his garden all day, made his way through the crowd. His hair was silvery white and very long, done in a braid that trailed down his back. A small neat beard adorned his weathered face, and there were lines formed by laughter and smiling around his eyes. He was leaning on a long staff, its wood polished with years of use, and he gently moved Merana out of the way with a hand on her withers as if he was well used to her ebullient nature.

  "We are both delighted to see you, child—and in such company." He raised his eyebrows, looking over Idalia's shoulder at Cormo. The Centaur male looked very much as if he wished to slink away, but didn't quite dare.

  "Master Eliron—just the person I was hoping to see," Idalia said. "You are still on the Council, aren't you?"

  So this was Merana's Master? Kellen had made the assumption—obviously a mistaken one—that the old Healer must be another Centaur.

  "Nothing short of death will make them accept my resignation, so they tell me," the old healer said with a gentle smile. "But surely you cannot have need of my services in either of my capacities, not with a Wildmage of your own to call upon?" he added, nodding toward Kellen.

  "Nothing like that," Idalia assured him. "But I healed Cormo today, and I have a price to pay as my part of the healing. Tell me, is Haneida here, by any chance?"

  Eliron looked surprised by the question. "Why, yes. She came to see me this afternoon, and I persuaded her to accept my hospitality for the evening. As I hope you and your brother will as well. It's too long a walk back to that cabin of yours to make tonight."

  "We were hoping someone would tender us an invitation to stay," Idalia confessed cheerfully. "And you set a fine table, Master Eliron. Could someone fetch her, if it wouldn't be too much trouble"—she held out a minatory hand to Cormo, who looked as if he was going to bolt—"not you, Cormo!—then I can pay my price and spend the rest of the evening in amusing myself. Kellen is eager to see your village."

  "As we are to show it to him," Master Eliron assured her gracefully.

  "I'll go," Merana offered quickly.

  She half reared and pivoted neatly in place on her hind legs, then moved nimbly off through the crowd, which was already buzzing with expectancy at the prospect of great revelations in store. Several others at the edges of the crowd also faded off to spread the word that something terribly interesting was about to happen, and as word spread, the crowd grew, until Kellen was sure that everyone in all of Merryvale was crowded into the market square. As he looked around, he could see people crowded at the open windows of the cottages that had upper stories as well, leaning out of the windows and looking down into the square. If Cormo had wanted to keep the terms of his price a secret, there was no way he was going to be able to do it now.

  Which was probably exactly as Idalia had planned, the clever thing.

  A few minutes later Merana returned, walking slowly and carefully. Seated on her back was an old woman whom Kellen guessed must be Haneida. She sat very straight and held her walking staff across her lap. The crowd parted to let them through, and when they reached Eliron and Idalia, Merana knelt gracefully to let Haneida dismount. The old lady looked around the square, her blue eyes bright and sharp.

  Kellen thought she looked amused. He also had the distinct impression that she was not going to be much surprised when she heard Cormo's price.

  "Well. All this fuss can't be for one old lady, now can it? Or is it that young Cormo has been up to more mischief than usual?"

  "He'll be up to less in the future," Idalia said, stepping forward. "This afternoon I healed him with the Wild Magic, and Cormo accepted half the price. His price was this: that for a year and a day, he is to help you haul your cart to and from the market, Haneida."

  There was a moment of silence, and then the market square exploded with laughter. Cormo growled low in his throat, flushing dark with embarrassment. He stamped his hooves fretfully, hating to be the butt of the joke, but did nothing else. Kellen guessed there was nothing he could do aside from stand there and take it. For all that Idalia said that Merryvale didn't have guards the way Armethalieh did, he guessed the village must have some way to keep the peace, and a lot of the folks in the crowd, human and Centaur both, looked big and strong enough to make even Cormo think twice about any bullyragging he might want to get up to.

  Haneida laughed until she doubled over, clutching at her staff for support. "Oh, my!" she gasped, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. "Cormo doing honest work for once! It was worth living this long to see that!" She hobbled stiffly over to the Centaur and stared up at him. "Who knows, young man? Perhaps you will grow to like it. And you'll find it a sight easier to be given a honey-loaf warm from the oven than to skulk around my window trying to steal them from the cooling racks!"

  Cormo stared down at her, his face blank with surprise. "You'll pay me?" he said in shock.

  Haneida reached up with her staff and rapped him smartly on the shoulder. "Pay? Who said anything about paying you, my young scallywag? You've been paid, in the coin of healing. But when a friend does me a kindness, I do a friend a kindness in return. Besides, it's hungry work, making that long trip from my cottage down to the market and back, and I don't intend to see you go hungry for it. Now. I'll see you in three days, at sunrise, at my front door. Don't be late. And be clean!"

  "Yes, ma'am," Cormo said, as meekly as Kellen had ever heard him speak. Haneida turned away and regarded the crowd. "I suppose none of you have homes and dinners of your own to go to?" she said tartly. Waving away all offers of assistance, she began to make her way slowly back the way she had come.

  The crowd, sensing that the show was over, began to slowly break up and disperse. Cormo, too—at a nod from Idalia—took the opportunity to make his escape, though as he edged his way through the crowd and out through the Merryvale gates, he kept darting bemused looks over his shoulder at the retreating figure of Haneida, until her slight stooped figure was lost in the crowd.

  "He's not altogether bad," Master Eliron said quietly, for Idalia's and Kellen's ears alone, "but like so many, he will try whatever he can get away with."

  Idalia shrugged; now that she had discharged her price, Cormo was no longer her problem. "I'd hate to try to get away with something while Haneida was watching me, Master Eliron. And with the whole village knowing that he is under an obligation, it should be no great difficulty to see that he stays honest… for a year and a day at least. After that, who knows? Maybe he'll figure out that working for his keep is actually easier than the course of theft and bullying he's been following."

  "Only the greatest of Mages can see the future," Master Eliron agreed solemnly, "and the future is not always so very cooperative as even they might wish. But come. I have spent a long day in my stillroom and herbarium, and will be glad of a chance to stretch my legs—and you have said your brother wishes to see something of our village."

  "We've come to do some trading as well, before winter sets in," Idalia said. "But that can wait for tomorrow. Most of all—and I think, first of all—I've promised Kellen a proper hot bath."

  Master Eliron laughed. "And so
you shall have one, both of you. Merana, take our guests' packs to the house, and tell the cook we will be two more for dinner. Come, Kellen. I can show you at least a bit of Merryvale on the way to your bath."

  HALF an hour later Kellen was soaking up to his neck in the first hot bath he'd had since… well, he really couldn't really remember when, since he wasn't sure he could really count hasty dips in the laundry tub back in Armethalieh, and it felt wonderful. He didn't even care that it was a communal bath, and that he was sharing it with Master Eliron and several of the other men of Merryvale, while Idalia basked in similar accommodations on the woman's side of the bathhouse.

  He was up to his neck in a large steaming copper-sheathed wooden tub, and he didn't care if he never left it. The hot water was easing aches and pains he hadn't even realized were there until they were gone.

  This was the last—and hottest, and largest—of the three tubs in the Merryvale bathhouse, the one you got into when you were clean. The first, a small, tepid, and rather murky tub, was just for rinsing off the worst of the muck and clay: that one you stood up in and scrubbed with a soft brush while pouring water over yourself from a dipper while an attendant topped up a second—fresh—tub with hot water. Kellen had to admit that after a morning spent packing clay and tar into the side of an oak tree, followed by a long cross-country hike, it had been a necessary step.

  The second tub was warmer, and big enough to sit down in. That was where you scrubbed yourself clean with soap. While the soap wasn't the dainty colored and perfumed hard-milled stuff he'd been used to in the City, it was also a far cry from the tallowy blocks of harsh yellow stuff he'd gotten used to using at Idalia's. While it still smelled rather more like tallow than flowers, at least it didn't turn his skin red and raw.

  Once Kellen was thoroughly clean, the attendant—since it was Kellen's first time at the bathhouse, he'd been assigned a personal guide— conducted him through to the main room of the men's side, where he climbed a short ladder into the enormous wooden vat they called the "soaking pool." The water was kept constantly hot by a bed of coals beneath it—with new coals brought as the old embers died—and constantly full with new infusions of water. At this time of day there weren't too many people here, but Master Eliron told him that sometimes there were so many people waiting that the attendants had to come and turn people out after half an hour.

  "Especially in winter, when it seems as if the bathhouse is the only place in Merryvale that is really warm, especially to these old bones," the Healer said with a sigh. "But you won't have experienced one of our upland winters yet, will you?"

  "No, sir," Kellen said contentedly, steam rising about his face. "I only just came here a few moonturns ago. But I like the Wild Lands very much. Especially your village. I've never seen anyplace like it before."

  Idalia had promised there'd be time for a proper exploration of Merryvale tomorrow before they left, but on his way here, Kellen had already seen enough to fill his head with wonders.

  Compared to Armethalieh, Merryvale was tiny and primitive, but spending most of a season living in a rustic cabin in the wilderness with Idalia had changed Kellen's standards for comparison. He was now able to see that on its own terms, the little village was quite sophisticated—and a very happy place, as far as he could tell.

  While Armethalieh traded constantly and uneasily with the lands across the sea and the lands Beyond the Forest, Merryvale supplied nearly all its own needs, from cloth woven from the wool of its own sheep and the linen threads spun from its own flax, to honey from its own bees, fruit from its own orchards, and grain from its own fields. The villagers kept cattle and pigs and domestic fowl of all sorts as well, and for the very few things that they didn't produce for themselves, they had a fairly simple method of obtaining them.

  From what Idalia had already told him, and the conversation of his companions in the soaking pool, Kellen was able to figure out that Merryvale traded with other villages farther west of Merryvale at the yearly Midsummer Fair, a fortnight-long gathering that attracted people from hundreds of miles around, including the Mountain Traders.

  Kellen would certainly have liked to have seen that, but it didn't take much thought to figure out why Idalia had delayed his first visit to Merryvale until the time of the Fair was safely past. The Mountain Traders still traded with the farming villages that served Armethalieh, and if Lycaelon Tavadon didn't much care what had become of his daughter, the same could not be said of his interest in his son.

  It might be comforting to believe that Lycaelon assumed that the Outlaw Hunt had taken care of Kellen for good and all, but Kellen doubted it. Lycaelon could easily have scryed the Hunt, or viewed it through the eyes of one of the Hounds, and the High Mage probably knew very well that Kellen had been left wounded, but alive. If he'd been furious enough to send so many Hounds in the first place, he would still be looking for a way to end the embarrassing problem of his wayward son once and for all.

  If Kellen had been seen at the Fair, if word somehow got back to the City that Kellen had recovered and was living in the Wildwood, well…

  He didn't know exactly what would happen, but he was pretty sure he wouldn't care for it. And neither would anyone else who could even have been considered to have helped him.

  But those were unpleasant thoughts, and this was a most pleasant place. Idalia's foresight had protected his whereabouts for now, and Kellen had the shrewd notion that any attempt by Lycaelon to use High Magick to locate his son would meet with failure…

  After all, High Magick had been no match for the power of a unicorn's horn.

  At last—after what seemed far too short a time to Kellen—it was time to get dressed again. His clothes had been cleaned for him while he bathed—not a usual service of the bathhouse, but as the attendant had cheerfully explained, he and Idalia were honored guests. He toweled himself dry in front of one of the large iron stoves that kept the soaking room warm against the evening chill, and then dressed in smallclothes that had been washed and dried, and leathers that had been brushed completely clean.

  It was a level of service that he had accepted unquestioningly, growing up in House Tavadon, but now it made Kellen oddly uncomfortable. He had been waiting on himself for so long that it now seemed as if he was receiving something he was not entitled to, though Master Eliron's clothing had gotten the same treatment.

  Master Eliron tied the laces at the throat of his blue robe shut, and seemed to divine Kellen's unease and the cause of it.

  "Don't worry," the Healer said, patting Kellen on the shoulder. "These services are available to anyone who wishes to pay for them, and your sister has already paid their cost."

  "Um… okay. Good," Kellen said awkwardly. He wasn't sure which made him feel worse: worrying about it, or being reassured about it.

  He didn't have long to fret over the matter though. Idalia appeared in the doorway, her dark brown hair shining-clean and braided back into a single tail with a length of glossy red ribbon. She regarded the two of them, fists planted on hips and an expression of mock-fierceness on her face.

  "Well, come along, lazybones! The two of you may want to spend the entire evening stewing like prunes, but I'm hungry! And Merana won't thank you for making her wait to catch up on the gossip!"

  By the time they reached the street, Kellen realized that he was hungry as well. Hungry? That was too mild a word; he was ravenous. The sun had gone down behind the hills, but the long summer twilight still lingered, and many of the cottages had set out lanterns before their doors, the candles gleaming softly through the translucent oiled-parchment walls of the copper lanterns. It was easy to find their way, even though many of the streets were far narrower and more twisty than any of the streets of Armethalieh. The village might be built for both humans and Centaurs to live in, but obviously not to wander through in crowds.

  Master Eliron's house was on one of the wider streets—which made a great deal of sense, since the Master Healer must receive a great number of visitors
of both races. It was a fine two-story cottage, and the shutters of the lower windows were thrown open, releasing a number of savory smells into the evening air.

  Kellen's stomach rumbled loudly and Idalia snorted with rude laughter.

  "Now, now," Master Eliron said peaceably. "It's a nice change to welcome a pair of healthy appetites to the table—and if memory serves, you've never been shy of your food, eh, Idalia? Or are you still barely eating enough to keep a bird alive?"

  She laughed, as at an old joke, and Kellen realized that she must have told Master Eliron about having been turned into a Silver Eagle. The realization gave him a peculiar feeling, but he shrugged it off. Why shouldn't she tell him? There was no stigma to practicing Wildmagery outside the City lands, from what he'd seen. Idalia practiced it openly, and everyone accepted it as a normal part of life. Nobody was yelling for the Priests of the Light to shield them, or for the High Mages to come and protect them—not that the High Mages would, since the humans were living with Otherfolk. And not that Armethalieh's protection was anything that you'd want…