crescent-shaped scars.
"By the fact that She blessed it with Her own
fire, it can be nothing but a true bond—" Tarma
began, finding her tongue again.
"Sheka!" the old man spat, interrupting her. "She
says openly she is a sorceress. She could have pro-
duced a seeming sign—could have tricked even you!"
"For what purpose?"
"To steal what outClan have always wanted; our
battlesteeds!"
Tarma pulled her hand away from Kethry's and
drew her sword at that venomous accusation.
"Kethry has saved my life; she has bled at my
side to help me avenge Tale'sedrin," Tarma spat,
holding her blade before her in both hands, taking a
wide-legged, defensive stance. "How dare you doubt
the word of Kal'enedral? She is my true she'enedra
by a Goddess-blessed vow, and you will retract
your damned lie or die on my blade!"
Whatever tragedy might have happened next was
forestalled by the battle scream of a hawk high in
the sky above Kethry. For some reason—she never
could afterward say why—she flung up her arm as
Tarma had to receive the hawk in the forest.
A second scream split the air, and a golden me-
teor plummeted down from the sun to land on
Kethry's wrist. The vorcel-hawk was even larger
than Moonsong's had been, and its talons bit into
Kethry's arm as it flailed the air with its wings,
mantling angrily at the Council. Pain raced up her
arm and blood sprang out where the talons pierced
her, for she had no vambrace such as Tarma wore.
Blood was dying the sleeve of her robe a deep
crimson, but Kethry had endured worse in her train-
ing as a sorceress. She bit her lip to keep from
crying out and kept her wrist and arm steady.
The members of the Council—with the exception
of the Clan Chief, the Shaman and the Healer of
Liha'irden—stepped back an involuntary pace or
two, murmuring.
Tarma held out her arm, still gripping her blade
in her right hand; the hawk lifted itself to the
proffered perch, allowing Kethry to lower her
wounded arm and clutch it to her chest in a futile
effort to ease the pain. Need would not heal wounds
like these; they were painful, but hardly life-
threatening. She would have to heal them herself
when this confrontation was over; for now, she
would have to endure the agony in silence, lest
showing weakness spoil Tarma's bid for the atten-
tion of the Council.
"Is this omen enough for you?" Tarma asked, in
mingled triumph and anger. "The emblem of Tale'se-
drin has come, the spirit of Tale'sedrin shows itself—-
and it comes to Kethry, whom you call outClan and
deceiver! To me, she'enedra!"
Again, without pausing for second or third thoughts,
Kethry reached out her wounded right hand and
caught Tarma's blade-hand; the hawk screamed once
more, and mantled violently. It hopped along Tarma's
arm until it came to their joined hands, hands that
together held Tarma's blade outstretched, pointing
at the members of the Council. There it settled for
one moment, one foot on each wrist.
Then it screamed a final time, the sound of its
voice not of battle, but of triumph, and it launched
itself upward to be lost in the sun.
Kethry scarcely had time to notice that the pain
of her arm was gone, before the young Healer of
Liha'irden was at her side with a cry of triumph of
his own.
"You doubt—you dare to doubt still?" he cried,
pulling back a sleeve that was so soaked with blood
that beneath it the flesh was surely pierced to the
bone. "Look here, all of you—look!"
For beneath Kethry's sleeve her arm was smooth
and unwounded, without so much as a scar.
Five
The gathering-tent was completely full; crowded
with gaudily garbed Shin'a'in as it was, it would
have been difficult to find space for even a small
child. Tarma and Kethry had places of honor near
the center and the firepit. Since the confrontation
with the Council and their subsequent vindication,
their credit had been very high with the Liha'irden.
"Keth—" Tarma's elbow connected gently with
Kethry's ribs.
"Huh?" Kethry started; she'd been staring at the
fire, more than half mesmerized by the hypnotic
music three of her Liha'irden "cousins" had been
playing. Except for her hair and eyes she looked as
Shin'a'in as Tarma; weeks in the sun this summer
had turned her skin almost the same golden color
as her partner's, and she was dressed in the same
costume of soft boots, breeches, vest and shirt, all
brightly colored and heavily embroidered, that the
Shin'a'in themselves wore. If anything, it was Tarma
who stood out in her sober brown.
It had been a good time, this past spring and
summer; a peaceful time. And yet, Kethry was
feeling a restlessness. Part of it had to be Need's
fault; the sword wanted her about and doing. But
part of it—part of it came from within her. And
Tarma was often unhappy, too. She hadn't said any-
thing, but Kethry could feel it.
"It's your turn. What's it going to be; magic, or
tale?"
The children, who had been lulled by the music,
woke completely at that. Their young voices rose
above the murmuring of their elders, all of them
trying to have some say in the choice of entertain-
ment. Half of them were clamoring for magic, half
for a story.
These autumn gatherings were anticipated all
year; in spring there were the young of the herds to
guard at night, in summer night was the time of
moving the herds, and in winter it was too cold and
windy to put up the huge gathering-tent. Children
were greatly prized among the Clans, but normally
were not petted or indulged—except here. During
the gatherings, they were allowed to be a little
noisy; to beg shamelessly for a particular treat.
This was the first time Tarma had included her
she'enedra in the circle of entertainment, and the
Liha'irden were as curious about her as young cats.
"Does it have to be one or the other?" Kethry
asked.
"Well, no ..."
"All right then," Kethry said, raising her voice to
include all of them. "In that case, I'll tell you and
show you a tale I learned when I was an apprentice
with Melania of the White Winds Adepts." She
settled herself carefully and spun out some of her
own internal energy into an illusion-form. She held
out her hands, which began to glow, then the thin
thread of the illusion-form spun up away from them
like a wisp of rising smoke. The tendril rose until it
was just above the heads of the watching Shin'a'in,
then the end thickened and began to rotate, draw-
&nb
sp; ing the rest of the glow up into itself until it was a
fat globe dancing weightlessly up near the centerpole.
"This is the tale as it was told me," Kethry be-
gan, just as the Shin'a'in storytellers had begun,
while the children oohed and whispered and the
adults tried to pretend they weren't just as fasci-
nated as the children. "Once in a hollow tree on
the top of a hill, there lived a lizard."
Within the globe the light faded and then bright-
ened, and a scene came into focus; a stony, vetch-
covered hill surmounted by a lightning-blasted tree
of great girth, a tree that glowed ever so faintly. As
the Clansfolk watched, a green and brown scaled
lizard poked his head cautiously out of a crevice at
the base of it; the lizard looked around, and appar-
ently saw nothing, for the rest of him followed.
Now even the adults gasped, for this lizard walked
erect, like a man, and had a head more manlike
than lizardlike.
"The lizard's name was Gervase, and he was one
of the hertasi folk that live still in the Pelagir Hills.
Hertasi once were tree-lizards long, long ago, until
magic changed them. Like humans, they can be of
any nature; good or bad, kind or cruel, giving or
selfish. But they all have one thing in common. All
are just as intelligent as we are, and all were made
that way long ago by magic wars. Now this Gervase
knew a great deal about magic; it was the cause of
him being the way he was, after all, and there was
so much of it in the place where he lived that his
very tree-home glowed at night with it. So it isn't
too surprising that he should daydream about it,
now, is it?"
The scene changed; the children giggled, for the
lizard Gervase was playing at being a wizard, just
as they had often done, with a hat of rolled-up
birch bark and a "wand" of a twisted branch.
"He wanted very badly to be a wizard; he used to
dream about how he would help those in trouble,
how he would heal the sick and the wounded, how
he would be so powerful he could stop wars with a
single wave of his wand. You see, he had a very
kind heart, and all he ever really wanted to do was
to make the world a little better. But of course, he
knew he couldn't; after all, he was nothing but a
lizard."
The lizard grew sad-looking (odd how body-
language could convey dejection when the crea-
ture's facial expressions were nil), put aside his
hat and wand, and crawled up onto a branch to sit
in the sun and sigh.
"Then one day while he was sunning himself, he
heard a noise of hound and horse in the distance."
Now the lizard jumped to his feet, balancing
himself on the branch with his tail while he craned
his neck to see as far as he could.
"While he was trying to see what all the fuss was
about, a man stumbled into his clearing."
A tattered and bloody human of early middle age
fell through the bushes, catching himself barely in
time to keep from cracking his head open on the
rocks. There was a gasp from the assembled Clans-
folk, for the man had plainly been tortured. Kethry
had not toned the illusion-narrative down much
from the one she'd been shown; firstly, the chil-
dren of the Clans were used to bloodshed, sec-
ondly, it brought the fact home to all of them that
this was a true tale.
The man in the illusion was dark-haired and
bearded; bruised and beaten-looking. And if one
looked very carefully, it was possible to see that the
rags he wore had once been a wizard's robe.
"Gervase didn't stop to wonder about who the
man was or why he was being chased; he only
knew that no thinking creature should hunt an-
other down like a rabbit with dogs and horses. He
ran to the man—"
The lizard slid down the tree trunk and scam-
pered to the fallen wizard. Now it was possible to
see, as he helped the man to his feet, that he was
very close to being man-sized himself, certainly
the size of a young adolescent. At first the man
was plainly too dazed to realize what it was that
was helping him, then he came to himself and did a
double take. The shock and startlement on his face
made the children giggle again—and not just the
children.
" 'Come, human,' Gervase said. 'You must hide
in my tree, it's the only place where you can be
safe. I will keep the dogs away from you.' The
wizard—for that was what he was—did not waste
any breath in arguing with him, for he could clearly
hear the dogs baying on his track."
The lizard half-carried the man to the crevice in
the tree; the man crawled inside. Gervase then ran
over to a rock in the sun and arranged himself on it,
for all the world like an ordinary (if overly-large)
lizard basking himself.
"When the dogs came over the hill, with the
hunters close behind them, Gervase was ready."
As the dogs and the horses burst through the
underbrush, Gervase jumped high in the air, as if
startled out of his wits. He dashed back and forth
on all fours for a moment, then shot into the crack
in the tree. There he remained, with his head stick-
ing out, obviously hissing at the dogs that came to
bark and snap at him and the man he was protect-
ing. When one or two got too close, Gervase bit
their noses. The dogs yelped and scuttled to the
rear of the pack, tails between their legs, while the
entire tent roared with laughter.
"Then the man who had been hunting the wizard
arrived, and he was not pleased. He had wanted
the wizard to serve him; he had waited until the
wizard's magics were either exhausted or nullified
by his own magicians, then he had taken him pris-
oner and tortured him. But our wizard had pre-
tended to be unconscious and had escaped into the
Pelagirs. The lord was so angry he had escaped
that he had taken every hunter and dog he had and
pursued him—but thanks to Gervase, he thought
now that he had lost the trail."
The plump and oily man who rode up on a sweat-
ing horse bore no small resemblance to Wethes.
Tarma smiled at that, as the "lord" whipped off his
hounds and laid the crop across the shoulders of
his fearful huntsman, all the while turning purple
with rage. At length he wrenched his horse's head
around, spurring it savagely, and led the lot out of
the clearing. Gervase came out of hiding; so did the
wizard.
"The wizard was very grateful. 'There is a great
deal of magical energy stored in your home,' he
said. 'I can grant you nearly anything you want,
little friend, if you'll let me use it. What way can I
reward you?' Gervase didn't even have to think
about it. 'Make me a man like you!
' he said, 'I want
to be a man like you!' Think carefully on what
you're asking,' the mage said. 'Do you want to be
human, or do you want to be a magician? You have
the potential within you to be a great mage, but it
will take all the magic of your tree to unlock it, and
even then it will take years of study before you can
make use of your abilities. Or would you rather
have the form of a human? That, too, will take all
the magic of your tree. So think carefully, and
choose.' "
The little lizard was plainly in a quandary; he
twitched and paced, and looked up at the sky and
down at the ground for help.
"Gervase had a terrible decision, you see? If he
became a human, people would listen to him, but
he wouldn't have the magic to do what he wanted
to do. But if he chose to have his Gifts unlocked,
where would he find someone who would teach the
use of them to a lizard? But finally, he chose. 'I
will be a mage,' he said, 'and somewhere I will
find someone willing to teach me, someone who
believes that good inside is more important than
the way I look on the outside.' "
The wizard in the vision smiled and raised his
hands over Gervase. The tree began to glow brightly;
then the glow flowed off the tree and over the little
lizard, enveloping him and sinking into him.
" 'You need look no further, little friend,' said
the mage, when he'd done. Tor I myself will teach
you, if you wish to be my apprentice.' "
Gervase plainly went half-mad with joy; he
danced comically about for a good several minutes,
then dashed into the now-dark tree and emerged
again with a few belongings tied into a cloth. To-
gether he and the mage trudged down the path and
Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound Page 13