Forever

by Pati Nagle

  Despite the fear and havoc created by the alben, despite the tension of needing to find a cure for koilohaemia (preferably yesterday), I felt more fulfilled and more at peace than I ever remembered feeling before. I had found not just one person, but a whole family who respected me for who I was, and who valued me. It was as if I had finally found my true home.

  The apples gave way to a field of raspberries. They were mostly done, but a few late berries clung under the leaves. Madóran invited me to eat as many as I liked, so I grabbed the ones I spotted—warm from the sunshine, sweet and tart on the tongue—and shared them with Lomen as we passed between rows of bushes. Beyond was another orchard, this one not bearing fruit at the moment. The leaves looked a little like peaches, if I was remembering right.

  A house came into view: single-story adobe, small, with a wing still under construction. Similar in style to Madóran’s hacienda, with all possibility of eventually getting that big. For now, it was just a modest house.

  Some tall cottonwoods stood west of it, shading it from behind. I heard running water; there was a river back there among the trees.

  Madóran stepped onto the portal and knocked on the front door. After a longish pause, it was opened by a male ælven, plainly one of Caeran’s kin by his brown hair and green eyes. He shot me an unsettled look, then turned a questioning gaze on Madóran.

  “Greetings, Nathrin.” Madóran gestured to me. “I have a guest, Steven Harrison, who would like to meet Mirali.”

  I bowed slightly, the way I’d seen Lomen do. Nathrin sized me up with a longer look, then answered.

  “I will find out if she is comfortable receiving visitors. May I ask you to wait?”

  Madóran nodded, and Nathrin closed the door. I traded a glance with Lomen.

  Don’t mind Nathrin. They are still afraid.

  Still?

  Since we journeyed here. It was a difficult time. Mirali was very ill and we feared we would lose both her and her child.

  Well, I’m glad that didn’t happen.

  Madóran strode a few steps away, along the portal. I looked at Lomen.

  Did I say something to make him mad?

  He is giving us privacy, I believe. He knows we are talking.

  Can’t he hear us?

  Mindspeech between ælven is quite rare.

  I gazed after Madóran, suddenly feeling bad. I’d assumed the ælven could all talk with each other this way.

  We learn instinctively to shield our thoughts long before we can talk. It is a habit few of us can overcome.

  Except with humans.

  Most humans do not know how to shield. Your thoughts are open, and we can answer if we choose.

  Why doesn’t your shield interfere with that?

  I believe it is because your khi does not trigger our defensive reflexes. We can influence you through khi, and that includes being able to converse with you.

  I couldn’t help the shiver that went through me. Yeah, I’d been influenced pretty hard.

  Speaking of shielding, you might want to do so now. It would be polite to Mirali and Nathrin if you kept your thoughts quiet.

  I promptly shielded, then walked after Madóran.

  “Lomen tells me you couldn’t hear our conversation. I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry.”

  He smiled. “No need to apologize.”

  The door opened again. Madóran returned to it and I followed.

  “You may come in,” Nathrin told us.

  I brought up the rear, shielding my thoughts again for good measure. The house was simply furnished, though there were Madóran touches here and there: a carved door, a low table, and in the room where Mirali awaited us, a pottery urn and mug on a tale beside her.

  She looked up, green eyes wide and defiant. It was the first time I had seen Caeran’s features on a female. I had expected small and frail, but she was majestic, nearly the same size as her partner.

  She had her baby in her arms, and had apparently recently been feeding it. A blue and green shawl draped her shoulders. The baby was wrapped in similar colors, so that its pale face glowed against the darker tones.

  “Mirali,” said Madóran, bowing. “I am glad to see you looking well. May I introduce Steven Harrison? He is a new friend of ours.”

  I bowed to her. “I am honored to meet you.”

  She shot Madóran a glance that looked like annoyance to me, then put on a tolerant smile. “Hello.”

  “Congratulations on your beautiful baby,” I said. “Is it a girl?”

  She nodded, and her eyes softened a bit. “Her name is Nathrali.”

  A girl. Good for the clan’s future.

  “May you grow strong and wise, Nathrali,” I said softly.

  The baby opened her eyes and looked straight at me. I was surprised. Not that I was an expert, but I thought newborns didn’t learn to focus like that for a while. But that was humans; aelven might be different.

  I smiled at her. She stared back for a minute, then turned and burrowed against her mother’s chest.

  “Evennight will be her first celebration with the clan, right?” I said. “Same for me.”

  Mirali’s eyes narrowed. She looked as if she were thinking of what to say.

  “Yes,” Nathrin said.

  Mirali looked at him. I could have sworn they were talking in mindspeech.

  “I doubt we will be there,” Mirali said.

  “Because Savhoran and Pirian are here?” I said. Madóran shifted beside me; I paid no attention. “You know, just being in a room with them won’t endanger you or Nathrali.”

  “You cannot know that.”

  “Madóran tells me the disease is blood-borne, and probably only transmitted through contact with bodily fluids.”

  She looked at Madóran. He nodded.

  “That is my belief.”

  “We’re going to find a cure,” I said brashly.

  She tilted her head back. “Before the ceremony?”

  “Of course not. You’re right, it will take years, but we will find one. Before Nathrali is grown up,” I said, again taking a risk.

  “A laudable goal,” Mirali said. Her tone told me she didn’t buy it.

  “Look, come to the ceremony. You can stand on one side, and Savhoran and Pirian on the opposite. Fair enough?”

  Her gaze shifted from me to Madóran. “One wonders why a human concerns himself so with our customs.”

  “His concern is for our well-being, Mirali.”

  “How refreshing.”

  “My concern is for your survival. All of you.” I glanced at Nathrin. “Your best chance is if you stay together.”

  Nathrin said nothing, but a fleeting smile of exasperation crossed his face. Aha! He had been arguing the same thing.

  “You see, until a couple of weeks ago I didn’t know the ælven existed,” I went on. “You’re a miracle to me. I want you to survive, to prosper. I’ll do what I can to help.”

  “Steven has committed his life to curing the curse,” Lomen said.

  Mirali’s eyes widened. “Why would you do this for us? You say you knew nothing of us a short while ago.”

  “I …” I shrugged. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever found.” I glanced at Madóran, hoping I wasn’t sticking my foot in my mouth. “I want to be around you as much as I can. All of you.”

  “All of us?” Mirali said quietly. “Even Pirian?”

  Had she lifted that from my thoughts? But I had shielded. Maybe she just counted on my being afraid of him. Well, I was, but it was more complicated than that.

  “Pirian is struggling to figure out which way to go,” I said. “I know what that’s like. If I can help him, I will.”

  She gazed at me, then at her partner. I shot another glance at Madóran. He smiled, then gave a tiny nod toward the door.

  “Thank you for allowing me to visit. I hope to see you again soon,” I said, backing away.

  Mirali watched me go, her green eyes thoughtful. Nathrin showed us out, and as I passed him i
n the doorway he offered his hand.

  “Thank you for visiting.”

  The ælven didn’t shake hands much; I knew he was honoring me. I grasped his hand briefly and smiled.

  “I’m glad I got to meet you.”

  He nodded. “We will meet again.”

  Nathrin turned to Madóran and said something in ælven. Madóran answered briefly, then we walked back toward the hacienda.

  That brief exchange in ælven had made me realize that they had all spoken English for my sake during the visit, even Mirali. That little courtesy made me feel self-conscious; I’d required them to speak in a foreign language. I hadn’t meant to impose on them in such a way.

  “You did well, Steven,” Madóran said.

  “Hope I didn’t say anything stupid.”

  “No. I think you impressed them.”

  “And Mirali is difficult to impress,” said Lomen, grinning.

  As we walked back, I found myself thinking about Pirian. Not that I wanted to—I’d rather have nothing to do with him—but what I’d told Mirali was true. I knew what it was like to have to decide between two cultures, two ways of life. He hadn’t volunteered for the curse. He was facing a tough choice: commit to Ebonwatch and follow the creed, or go alben and be alone. Either way he had to give something up.

  We got back to the hacienda and Madóran paused at the veggie garden to pick some stuff for dinner. I offered to help, with the caveat that I couldn’t tell a carrot from a turnip. Madóran laughed.

  “How would you like to carry the basket?”

  He got a big wicker basket and a broad-brimmed straw hat for me from the utility room. Lomen excused himself, saying he wanted to study. I watched him go into the hacienda.

  “Not a gardener, either?”

  “He is competent, but I think it holds no passion for him.”

  I followed Madóran around as he pulled things out of the ground and clipped green stuff. He showed me how to pull carrots, and how to rescue them when I broke off the tops. The joy he took in his garden was contagious. I found myself smiling as I coaxed a fat carrot out of the ground.

  “I’ve never done any gardening,” I said. “You really love it, don’t you?”

  “Like many tasks, it can be a meditation. In this case, since one is growing food, a very potent one.”

  “Is that how you feel about all the things you do? I mean the carving, and the pottery...”

  “They are all meditations, yes. Making useful objects, and making them beautiful, focuses one on life’s blessings. Of course, it is also a way to pass the time. I lived here for more than a century before the colonists arrived, alone except for the occasional traveler who stopped to ask shelter.”

  “Or the occasional brigand who wanted to rob you?”

  Madóran paused and looked up at me with a grin. “Very few of those. I dealt summarily with the first two or three, and word got around.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Do I want to know how you dealt with them? No, I don’t think I do.”

  “I did them no harm,” he said mildly, lifting a head of lettuce from the ground.

  “Just scared the bejeezes out of them?”

  He smiled as he put the lettuce into the basket and got to his feet. “I think that is enough. Thank you for your help.”

  “My pleasure. Thanks for putting up with my questions.”

  “Your questions remind me of all I have to be grateful for.”

  He stood smiling at me, a slight breeze stirring his hair around his face. A strand blew across his cheek, and without thinking I reached to brush it back.

  The tingle of his khi flashed through me as I touched his face. I stood marveling, just enjoying the sensation for itself. Truly amazing, these ælven.

  I have another question.

  Yes?

  You and Lomen can’t talk with mindspeech.

  True.

  But I can talk with each of you. If I talk to both of you at once, can you hear each other through me?

  An interesting question. I believe the answer is “no,” but I have never attempted it.

  Could we try it sometime? Just to see?

  I am willing.

  Thanks.

  You are a fount of curiosity, Steven. It is quite refreshing.

  We went into the house and took the vegetables to the kitchen, where Madóran started washing them. I got myself a glass of water.

  “Think I’ll go study for a while, if you don’t mind. Unless you want help with dinner?”

  “No, no. Not for a while yet. Go and fill your mind.”

  I crossed the plazuela to my room. Lomen was sitting in the shade by the fountain; he glanced up at me and I smiled a hello.

  Studying in that beautiful garden. What a hardship. I decided to join him.

  I fetched my tablet and pulled up a chair so I could share the small table beside Lomen. “OK?”

  He smiled. “Fine.”

  I brought up my genetics text and caught up on all my reading for the course. I would miss a week’s worth of classes. Ouch.

  I got out my phone and texted all my professors, explaining that I was out of town on family business—I smiled at that—and asking for the assignments for the week. Maybe someday I’d catch up.

  School wasn’t such an urgent thing for me any more. I had quit worrying about what degree to take. I’d get one, sure—but it wasn’t the first priority now. First priority was learning the skills I needed to conquer koilohaemia.

  I sat musing about it. Hollow blood. I wondered if it really was a form of anemia.

  “Does Madóran have a microscope?” I asked.

  Lomen looked up from his book. “I don’t know. I doubt it.”

  I sighed. “Have to wait until we’re back in town.”

  “What do you want it for?”

  “I want to look at a sample of alben—well, of infected blood. Savhoran would give me one, right?”

  “Probably, but please be careful with it.”

  “Oh, absolutely. I’d just need a drop to put on a slide.”

  The worry in his voice reminded me that for him, too, the disease was a real threat. He might not be as obsessive as Mirali but he was just as concerned, and rightly so.

  I would be damn careful with any samples I took. Gloves and isolation, the works. Just treat it like plutonium.

  I turned to my chemistry homework. It went fast in that pleasant place. Occasionally a door would open and someone would walk around the portal, usually on the way to the kitchen. The birds twittered and fussed in the fountain. The air was perfect.

  After a while I realized I was staring at the tablet with my thoughts a million miles away. Zoning. Time to give up on studying.

  I got up, and Lomen gave me an enquiring look.

  “Think I’ll take a nap,” I said.

  I took my water glass to my room and stretched out on the bed. It smelled like Lomen and me, which made me smile.

  I must have conked out right away, because it seemed like only a minute had passed when Lomen knocked on the door, calling me to dinner. I got up and rubbed my eyes, combed my fingers through my hair, and headed for the kitchen.

  It was late; the sun must be setting, because the whole plazuela was shaded and a bit chilly. I followed Lomen across it and into the kitchen, which was full of fantastic smells.

  “Ah, good,” Madóran said as we came in. “You can carry. We are dining in the great room.”

  He indicated a platter of roast beef and bowls of spinach and carrots. Lomen and I collected them and went through a door at the far end of the kitchen, which opened into the plant-filled entryway. In the greatroom, Manda and Bironan were setting the long table, putting out wine glasses and lighting candles. We added our burdens to the potatoes and salad that were already there. It looked like a feast.

  There were eight of us at dinner. Talk was mostly about the Evennight celebration. While Madóran told the others about our visit to Mirali, I asked Manda how Savhoran was doing.

&n
bsp; “Fine. He’s been resting all day, which is good. He needs to catch up.”

  “And Pirian?”

  She shrugged. “The same, I assume.”

  “You’d be happier if he wasn’t around.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Partly. But the ælven need all the DNA they can muster.”

  “Even diseased DNA?”

  “Might be of use. And maybe Madóran is right—maybe Pirian will change.”

  Manda sighed. “I ought to cut him more slack. He pretty much saved my life, once. Not that he meant to.”

  I turned to her, astonished. “Pirian saved your life?”

  “Let’s not talk about it over dinner. I’ll tell you later.”

  She reached for the wine. I thought about what Len had said—that she and Manda both knew what to watch out for. They had both been attacked by alben. Now I had joined the club.

  Occupational hazard, I told myself. From now on, we’d be better organized, and there wouldn’t be any more alben encounters.

  I hoped.

  “You and Savhoran still going to do your...”

  “Cup-bond? Yeah. We’ll do it after the Evennight ceremony, that way Mirali can leave if she wants to.”

  “That’s nice of you.”

  “Savhoran’s idea. He’s morbidly sensitive about his condition and how the others react to him.” She glanced toward Faranin and Bironan, and lowered her voice. “He’s always worrying that they’ll banish him.”

  “They can’t, can they? What do you mean, ‘banish’?”

  “Caeran could, as clan leader. Greystone is superior to Ebonwatch. Even though Ebonwatch existed millenia ago, this iteration is new, and subordinate to Clan Greystone, which means Caeran can tell them what to do in certain circumstances.”

  “Caeran wouldn’t banish Savhoran.”

  She gave me a skeptical look and stabbed a carrot. “Anything’s possible.”

  I looked up to find Caeran watching me. He smiled slightly and said something to Madóran.

  The meal was leisurely. Conversation ranged over multiple topics, but by tacit agreement we didn’t talk about the alben. We did talk about the lab. Caeran wanted to design the compound during the winter and start construction by spring.

  The wine went around frequently, and at one point I realized I was getting bleary. I switched to water for a while.