by Lou Hoffmann
Zhevi was half tempted to get on his horse and ride after such a warning, but he didn’t. I’ve come to ask her to come home to the Hold. Maybe she won’t come, but I damn well won’t leave without at least a chance to talk to her.
“Tiro,” he said, knowing the shape-changer could understand him even when wearing an otter’s form. “I’m sorry for coming here without an invitation—intruding on your privacy. I wanted to find L’Aria. I know you may not believe this, but I love her. And plus, things aren’t so good right now, and maybe we—the Sunlands—will need her. You too, if you’ll come. Han told me where to find you, and he wrote out a message for me to give you.”
A blur of motion was all Zhevi saw before Tiro was standing before him in man shape, dry and dressed, and looking annoyed but not homicidal.
“You love my daughter, do you?”
Tiro had placed his hands on his hips in a challenging stance that Zhevi just barely stopped himself from smiling at, so very much like L’Aria’s habitual sassy attitude did it seem.
The question annoyed Zhevi, though, because Tiro already knew. They’d spent a whole river journey together from Gahabriohl to the Sisterhold, just the three of them, and Tiro would have had to have been blind not to see how he and L’Aria were with each other—even though they restricted themselves to words and glances and random meetings of the hands. Still, Tiro was her father, and he was as old as the world, and what right did he, Zhevi, have to resent his question? “Well, yes, sir. I do. I mean, I think so. I’m young, Tiro, but I’m rarely impulsive. I think about things—I’m a careful person. I didn’t arrive at loving L’Aria overnight.”
Tiro moved from where he was standing before Zhevi, towering over him, to sit on a nearby fallen log, and with the change in position he lost some of the intimidating attitude too. “Sit with me for a moment, Zhevi.”
Zhevi cast a look toward L’Aria, and saw the otter greeting Maizie nose-to-nose at the edge of the water. The sun had just sunk into the nearby tree branches, and the fire of the Falls dimmed. Though the nearing twilight glowed less spectacularly than the blaze of moments before, its gentle peace settled over the clearing and the creek, and Zhevi welcomed it. And, of course, he had no desire to argue with Tiro L’Rieve, of all people. He took a deep breath and went to sit next to the burly man.
“You say you’re young,” Tiro began, his tone reasonable, but still somewhat challenging. “And that is very true. You do know that, because of the Suth Chiell’s banishment to Earth and her ties to him, it is assumed L’Aria is quite young—younger than her true years? That would make you, for all intents and purposes a little old for her. What do you have to say about that? And, tell me, young Zhevi, what do you know about loving a girl with her birthright? Her song? And—as you see—her alternate form?”
L’Aria swam over to a place in the water just in front of where the two of them sat, raised her upper body out of the water and chittered rapidly at Tiro. Tiro’s eyebrows went up, and he gave her something like a warning look. Zhevi had no way to interpret what her outburst might have meant, but it sounded so much like one of L’Aria’s famous scolds that he bit his tongue to keep from smiling in pride, choosing to believe she was standing up to her father on his behalf. Nevertheless, L’Aria dove and swam back under the waterfall, and Zhevi was on his own with Tiro.
“You shall answer the questions I’ve asked, young Zhevi.”
Ordinarily, Zhevi was not the kind of person who would shoot off an angry retort without thinking, but this time, he had to bite his tongue to keep from doing just that. He took a deep breath, reminded himself to keep his goal in mind—angering Tiro wouldn’t get him there—and spoke in a level tone. “You know I can’t answer, Tiro. How could I? But I do know about her magic, and her birth, and her long sleep when Luccan was banished. I know about her connection to him, but I also know it’s not a… romantic connection. And I know she and I have some things in common—I’m an orphan, and though I have family who loves me and did their best to care for me, I grew up much faster and more independent than most. L’Aria lost her mother.”
Zhevi stopped for a moment when he felt Tiro tense beside him, but Tiro said nothing. Zhevi knew what he was about to say might not please him, but he also knew it was true, so he forged ahead. He’d keep his manner respectful, but he’d say what he needed to say.
“She lost her mother, and though in some ways you’re the most wonderful father a person could have, you often have not been able to be with her.”
Zhevi glanced sideways, looking for Tiro’s reaction. To his surprise, he didn’t look angry, he looked sad.
“Tiro, I understand that your absence wasn’t for lack of care or love. I know it’s your nature that made it necessary. I know she’s the same way—even before this new… her otter form… you know what I mean. I know she’ll never bow to my word like I’m the ruler of all things. I know she’ll never leave things undone in order to cling to me.”
As if to prove his point, L’Aria swam back out into the open water, climbed out on the opposite bank, made her way up to the top of the falls and jumped in to swim upriver. Zhevi watched her until she was out of sight on whatever otter’s errand she attended. The two words that shone bright in his mind as he followed her progress were beautiful and free.
He started to think maybe he’d come to the right place for the wrong reason, but he kept talking anyway. “And I know she cares about me, but she won’t resent if I have to be away from her. I’m a soldier, and I likely will be for however long I can do the job. A soldier needs to have someone around like L’Aria. And you know what, Tiro? I’m not so sure she didn’t grow up any during that long sleep while Luccan was away. I mean, I know she seemed unchanged when she awoke, but look at her now… she isn’t a child.”
Tiro nodded. “Yes. I’ve realized the same. Since awakening she’s changed fast. Her decision to come after me, this time, was made not out of childish self-interest but for me and for the good of Ethra. And, physically, her ability to make the shift suggests to me she nears adulthood, though there is no example to know by. Like me, she’s one of a kind. But as you said, I believe in the time since she awoke her path toward adulthood has accelerated, and we were wrong to think she was but a child.”
Zhevi nodded. “I think—I know she’s grown up enough to know what she wants, to make good decisions, to take care of herself most of the time pretty damn… er, darn well. I don’t know what difference her song and her ability to change into an otter can make for me. I love her, Tiro. And I’m fairly sure I’m not going to be changing my mind. But all that aside, right now, well, I came here because I wanted to ask her to come back to the Hold. That’s all—not to ask her to commit to a life with me. Not yet. But now, honestly I don’t know if maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe I was being selfish, or maybe I just needed to know she’s okay. Because now… I trust her, you know? She’ll come back when it’s the right time for her to do that. You too, right? I mean, it’s not like either of you don’t know what’s happening.”
“We know,” Tiro said, and then he was silent and thoughtful for a stretched moment as the world darkened to barest twilight. After a deep, troubled breath, he went on. “We feel it in the land and every living thing we touch upon it. The waters yet flow cleaner, but even there…. Where is this message Han Shieth entrusted you with?”
Zhevi fetched it from his saddlebags, brought it back to Tiro, and then excused himself to care for the horses. Maizie came back from where she’d followed L’Aria upstream just as Zhevi returned to the riverbank, where he found Tiro standing at the water’s edge, apparently conversing with L’Aria, the otter.
Tiro turned to him and asked, “Do you know what Han wrote in the message, young man?”
“No,” Zhevi answered honestly. Han had actually held it up for Zhevi to see before rolling and sealing it, smiling as he did so because he knew Zhevi couldn’t read the archaic lettering. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t give in to the temptation to open
the message and read it,” he’d said. “But now you won’t be tempted, since you know it would do you no good, anyway.”
Tiro nodded. “Well, he advised that I should share the information with you and L’Aria if I felt it appropriate. I would do so, but I would like to have L’Aria in her human form, as it might be difficult to translate the concepts to her otherwise.” He turned to Zhevi with a slight smile and the twinkle of humor overriding the sadness in his eyes. “We otters are brilliant, but complex language is not our strongest suit, and being furry is yet new for her.”
Zhevi smiled back, but turned then to watch L’Aria. Still in otter form, she basked in a still corner of the pool below the Falls, floating on her back and turning her right forepaw this way and that before her eyes, as if watching the play of the moonlight on Tiro’s stone. “Did you ask her to change?”
“I did,” Tiro answered. “But it isn’t so simple. This is the first time she’s taken otter form, and the transformation proved to be… arduous for her. You’ve seen that I take a shape and put it off in the blink of an eye. It has ever been thus for me, and I don’t know how or why it is so. But for her, it was different. She has continued to resist my efforts to encourage her to change back.”
“Oh!” Sudden fear struck Zhevi’s heart. “Um, she can, though, right? Turn back to human?”
“I believe so,” Tiro said but made no assurances to assuage Zhevi’s obvious concern. “But until she agrees to attempt it, we cannot know it as a certainty.”
Zhevi sat dumbstruck. He kept thinking please over and over again, thinking it as hard as he could and hoping Behlishan or whatever god watched over people like L’Aria would know his thoughts and do him a favor. At the same time, he didn’t want to her to endure the pain Tiro described, so how could he ask her to put herself through it?
Tiro took a deep breath and seemed about to speak when the horses snorted and stamped, and Maizie pointed her nose toward the trees, raised her tail like a signal flag, and barked twice. Her hackles weren’t up, though. She just wanted them to know something or someone was out there. Still, just in case, Zhevi hurried toward the spot where his gear was stashed—between some low branches in a willow a short way from the riverbank—and came back with his bow and quiver.
“Be calm. Wait,” Tiro said when Zhevi returned, and then he turned his attention toward the shadows under the trees. “Show yourself,” he said in a clear, strong voice full of authority.
Slowly, a manlike shape emerged from cover, hunched, hesitant, staggering and tripping over the uneven ground between the trees and the creek. When the figure had come within ten yards and into full moonlight, Zhevi finally let himself believe what his eyes were telling him.
He’d seen cairnwights before. Humanoid but not human, they were ordinarily small and frail-looking, though that belied their strength. Their blue veins could be traced through pale, thin skin. They had little hair anywhere, and what they did have never darkened beyond a bluish off-white.
But they walked sure-footed and upright, exuded confidence in what they knew and what they did, and cared well for themselves and the glacier wolves who were their hunting partners. And ordinarily, their skin did not sag and hang from a bony frame. They didn’t stumble.
And they never voluntarily came as far south as the Greenwood.
They communicated with their wolves by whistled commands, and they had a language of their own. But this one, sick and starving and possibly aged, had also learned Karrish.
“Help us,” he said in a thin voice like a reedy whisper. “Please. We are dying.”
The cairnwight’s knees buckled, and both Zhevi and Tiro moved to catch him before he fell. They helped him to sit with his back against the log, and Zhevi brought a waterskin—still filled with the good water from the spring—and offered it to him. Weakly, the wight reached for the skin, but dropped it. Tiro caught it before it fell and held the skin to the wight’s mouth so he could drink. The first swallow was hesitant, but after a couple more he took the skin into his own hands and began to drink greedily, reviving visibly.
Tiro looked at Zhevi, puzzled, and asked, “Where did you get this water?” When Zhevi told him, he said, “Ah, yes. The spring flows with waters that come directly from Kindled Springs. It travels a long distance underground, and groundwater infiltrates it, so it is diluted somewhat, but still has some of the revitalizing quality. You did well to fill your skins with it.”
Suddenly the wight pulled the skin from his mouth and, breathing hard, said, “Oh no! What have I done? I’ve taken all the blessed water for myself!”
Zhevi said, “Um, I have three full skins, still. How many more of you are there?”
“Only four besides me, now,” he said. “We were eight when we set out. Two turned back not long after we left the ice behind. One sat down to rest along the way, never to rise again.”
“I’m sorry,” Zhevi said, and he meant it sincerely.
“I, too,” Tiro said, but he continued in a practical vein. “And your wolves?”
“Four of us have our hunters with us, two each. We brought them hoping they could help us hunt along the way, but the heat…. Mostly they have barely been able to keep up with us along the trail, even as slow as we ourselves were moving.”
Tiro turned to Zhevi. “Take the water to the edge of the woods, there, by the solitary oak, and leave it for them.” Turning to the wight he said, “Call them out to partake of the water. No harm will befall them.”
With the sound of tuneful whistles and short, vowel-rich words following him, Zhevi went to do as Tiro had asked. When he returned the old wight was telling Tiro why they had come south on such a desperate journey.
The ice fields were melting, the foods that sustained them were dying, and the heat and a mysterious malady seemed to be draining the life from both cairnwights and glacier wolves. Before they left home, the old wight, whose name was Eldos—or at least that was as close as Zhevi could come to the foreign-sounding syllables—had been one of only two or three of the old ones among the related clans to still be alive and healthy. They’d entreated the gods of the north, including, among others, Mahl, whom they at times were forced to serve. They thought perhaps he might intervene, if only to keep them strong for future use.
“But our prayers,” Eldos said, “fell on deaf ears, as if the gods had themselves run away from whatever was changing the land and killing us.”
Finally, Eldos had suggested that a delegation travel south to see the wizard Thurlock, to appeal to him to help them find the source of their curse, and perhaps help them stay alive until it could be broken. The others scoffed, and one threw a challenge at him, saying if he thought it was such a good idea to go south why didn’t he do it himself. So he volunteered, and those who raised their hands to travel with him were the surviving members of his own family.
“It seemed best, that way, once I opened my eyes to it,” he said. “Only one family will be lost if the journey fails in its purpose—and it seems as though it will. I thank you for your kindness. But another day, or even a night, on the road in the southern summer will undo all the good this water has done. We cannot last long, and we’ve lost our way. I do not even know how far we are from our destination, or if we are going in the right direction.”
The long speech had exhausted Eldos, and at Tiro’s urging, he stopped to drink the last of the water in the waterskin he held.
Zhevi waited for Tiro to take the lead in responding to the old wight, but when Tiro didn’t say anything, he offered, “You’re only about three days out from the Hold on foot. I can show you the way. We can travel by night if that’s easier for you.”
Eldos said, “You are very kind, young man.”
Zhevi was certain he meant to say more, but at that moment they were interrupted by a flurry of splashing and some thuds on the bank, followed by a lot of flopping among a growing pile of fish on the bank.
Tiro smiled, “My daughter, L’Aria,” he said to Eldos. “She’s coll
ected dinner for your party. Please be welcome.”
“Oh, but you, then… you are the great otter, Tiro L’Rieve.”
“I am. And well met, Eldos. Would that it were better circumstances. But please bid your people come forth and stave off their hunger. I give you my word no harm will come to any of you here. And once you have eaten, we’ll talk. I believe I may have an answer to your immediate worries.”
The wights came out of the forest cautiously, but clearly grateful and relieved. Presumably, Eldos’s explanations to them included assurances that they’d be safe. One of them returned the waterskins to Zhevi, nodding her head in a way that seemed to mean thank you. The wights—all of them—divvied up the first large pile of fish and gave it to the wolves, who swallowed them whole to fill their bellies and then went to flop on the cool sand to rest and digest. They were joined by L’Aria and Maizie, neither of whom seemed to have any fear of the animals in this setting.
Zhevi wondered at that, for it was only slightly more than a year ago when Maizie and L’Aria had faced the toothsome glacier wolves in a fight for life itself. He had no time to focus on the question, though, for L’Aria had returned to the water to toss more fish onto the bank and Tiro had gone to help. The wights might have been hungry enough to eat them raw, but Zhevi was hungry too, and he hoped there’d be enough fish for him to eat a couple. He far preferred his fish cooked, so he started a fire.
Once the fire was going and he was holding cleaned fish over the flames on green sticks, he found out cairnwights also preferred them cooked. They didn’t so much like the heat of the fire, though.
“Usually, we use fire to cook outside, where ice, snow, and wind can cool us. Sometimes the fire’s mild warmth is welcome, for even we can get too cold. But we are already so taxed by days of heat and travel with little to sustain us….”
So Zhevi roasted fish at his fire for the next hour and a half until at last everyone had their fill. The wights lay down on the cool ground just as the wolves had, cradling their stomachs, and soon the creek’s banks were filled with the sound of soft, contented snores.