Rebel Fay

by Barb Hendee

  He heard a soft whine and raised his ears.

  The barest hint of creamy white showed beneath a bush of lilacs beyond one domicile tree. Between its lower branches, two crystalline eyes stared back across the open space at Chap.

  Lily hid where she might not be noticed. For all her fear of this place, she had come back and silently watched for him.

  Chap glanced up at Osha, but the young elf had not noticed her. He wanted to run beside Lily through the wild forest and let nature's ebb help him decide what course to follow.

  He knew he should stay and help his companions consider this shackling bargain with which Most Aged Father tried to bind Leesil. Magiere and Wynn were also in danger here as unwanted outsiders. And in some way, great or small, this was all bound together by the hidden whereabouts of Nein'a. Chap's companions desperately needed to gain some element of power here.

  Nein'a's location was the crux of it all.

  If they only knew where she was imprisoned, that would remove a good deal of Most Aged Father's hold on Leesil.

  Chap heard Wynn half-shout behind him, "This is futile! We will not figure this all out tonight."

  "It's all we have to work with," Leesil growled back. "And I'm tired of waiting."

  "Stop it, both of you," Magiere said. "Leesil, come take a bath and let it rest for now. I can't even think anymore."

  Chap looked out to Lily hiding among the white lilacs. He caught her memories of the two of them running with the pack—and alone by themselves.

  Unlike her, Chap could read and even recall and use another's memories within line of sight, but he could not send Lily his own without touching her. There was something he must tell her… something she and her pack needed to help him do.

  He had no time to tell his companions and have them argue over it.

  Osha still watched him, so Chap turned away from Lily as he slipped out.

  He trotted down toward the riverside bazaar, hoping she would circle through the forest and follow. When he cut between a canvas pavilion and a stall made of ivy walls, she was waiting for him.

  Lily slid her muzzle along his, until they each rested their head upon the other's neck.

  Chap rolled his face into her fur and recalled Lily's own memories of her time with her siblings under the watchful eyes of her mother. He sent his memory of tall Nein'a and a young Leesil together.

  He was not as adept as her kind with this memory speech, and his limitation was frustrating. He had "listened" in as Lily and one of the steel-gray twins did this. Memories came and went in such a quick cascade. Whenever she spoke to him, the images were slow and gentle in simple sights, sounds, and scents. She understood he needed time to learn their ways and always showed him patience.

  Chap repeated the parallel memories of mother and child. This time, when he called the one of Nein'a and young Leesil, he pulled away Leesil's image, leaving Nein'a alone. He then recalled Lily's memories of her pack hunting in the forest, and did his best to mingle it with his own memory of the tall elven woman.

  The last image he sent was one stolen from Most Aged Father—a memory that had now become his own. Cuirin'nên'a, in a shimmering shéot'a wrap, sat in a glade clearing beside a basket of cocoons.

  Lily grew still beside him. She sent him no memory-talk. She nudged his muzzle with her own and took off, out of the settlement and into the forest.

  Chap raced after as Lily cut loose a howl. Somewhere in the distant trees, the pack answered.

  "Where's Chap?" Wynn called out.

  She sat alone on her ledge bed with the occasional splash coming from the bath area at the room's rear.

  "At least one of us can get out of here for a stretch," Magiere grumbled from behind the curtain.

  Wynn was a bit uncomfortable with Magiere and Leesil back there together, with only that gray-green fabric providing privacy. And with all the arguing over Most Aged Father's bargain and Chap's few troubling words…

  She climbed to her feet. "Why would Chap slip out without telling us?"

  "Who knows?" Leesil called back. "Stick your head out and call him, but don't go wandering about."

  Wynn left the two of them to talk—or whatever they did in there. She pulled the outer doorway curtain aside and looked out, but Chap was nowhere in sight. Neither were Sgäile or even Osha. She stepped out for a better view.

  There were no elves in sight, and Chap was gone. Both worried her.

  Wynn took a few more steps, looking up and down the lane of cultivated trees. To her far left she could just make out the silent and still remains of the dockside bazaar.

  "Chap?" she called in a harsh whisper.

  Chap rushed into a gully behind Lily. Ahead, the pack waited by a tiny stream. The black-gray elder lifted his head from lapping water gurgling over stones.

  Chap had not expected the pack to be so near, but they must have gathered to wait on Lily. As he approached beside her, the majay-hì circled about with huffs and switching tails, one by one touching heads as they passed her or him.

  Spry bodies surrounded him with warmth. One yearling colored much like himself charged playfully and butted Chap with his head. Chap shifted aside.

  He rejoiced in their welcome, but urgency kept him from languishing. He was neither certain how they could help nor how he could ask. Lily seemed to understand but would the others? On impulse, he pressed his head to hers and again showed her the stolen memory of Nein'a's hidden prison.

  Lily stayed against him, listening until he finished, then darted away.

  She brushed heads with the large black elder. An instant later, the male turned and touched a passing steel-gray female, the other twin. The rest joined in, and Chap watched the swirling dance of memory-talk as it passed through the pack.

  The elder's crystal blue eyes turned upon Chap.

  The old one tilted his gray muzzle, and then hopped the stream and scrambled up the gully's embankment more fleetly than his age would suggest.

  Lily trotted back to Chap and pressed her head to his. He saw a memory of the two of them resting beneath a leaning cedar after a long run. It seemed he was to wait—but for what?

  Chap's frustration mounted, still wondering if the pack truly understood what he needed.

  A rolling, moaning howl like a bellow carried through the forest. It came from the direction where the elder had disappeared.

  Lily brushed Chap's head with a memory of running as the rest of the pack charged off. He followed her up the embankment and through the woods. When he cleared the close trees, he saw the elder.

  The black-gray majay-hì stood on a massive cracked boulder jutting from a hillside of sparse-leafed elms. The pack remained below, and he appeared to be waiting and watching for something. The elder glanced upslope over his shoulder, and Chap stepped back from the boulder's base to see.

  Branches of a hillside elm appeared to move as if drifting through the trees. Two eyes high above the ground sparked in the half-moon's light and came downslope into clear sight.

  Head high, the silver-gray deer descended, coming up beside the grizzle-jawed old majay-hì. Its tineless curved antlers rose to a height no man or elf could reach. The shimmer of its long-haired coat turned to pure white along its throat and belly. Its eyes were like those of the majay-hì, clear blue and crystalline.

  The deer slowly lowered its head with a turn of its massive neck.

  Lily nudged Chap, pushing him forward.

  Chap did not understand. Was he to go to this creature?

  She shoved him again and then darted around the boulder's side. She stood waiting, and Chap loped after her. Before he caught up, Lily headed upslope, and he followed. At the height where stone met the earth slope, she stood aside and lifted her muzzle toward the silver deer.

  Chap hesitated. What did this have to do with finding Nein'a?

  Lily pressed against him. Along with a memory echo of the tall elven woman he had first shown her, Lily showed him something more—a memory of the pack elder tou
ching heads with one of these crystal-eyed deer.

  Chap froze as the deer swung its head toward him.

  He could not have imagined this creature might communicate in the same way as the pack. A tingling presence washed over him as he peered into the deer's eyes.

  It felt so vague… like one of his kin off at a distance. And yet not quite like them.

  The majay-hl were descended from the first born-Fay, born into flesh within wolves. Over many generations, the majay-hl had become the "touched" guardians of these lands.

  But there were others, it seemed, as Chap had almost forgotten.

  Within this deer, the trace of its ancestry was stronger than in the majay-hl, the lingering of born-Fay who had taken flesh in the form of deer and elk.

  Chap crept forward to stand below the tall creature—this touched child of his own kin. It stretched out one foreleg and bent the other, until its head came low enough to reach his. Chap pressed his forehead to the deer's, smelling its heavy musk and breath marked by a meal of wild grass and sunflowers. He recalled the memories of Nein'a that he had shared with Lily.

  The deer shoved Chap away, nearly knocking him off his feet. It stood silent and waiting.

  What had he done wrong?

  Lily slid her head in next to his, muzzle against muzzle. Images—and sounds—filled his mind.

  A majay-hl howling in the dark. An elven boy calling to another. Singing birds, jabbering fra'cise, and the indignant screech of the tâshgâlh he had trailed out of the mountain tunnels.

  Chap grasped the common thread. The deer wanted a sound. He approached as it lowered its head once more.

  With the image of Nein'a in the clearing, Chap called forth a memory of her voice… and that of any who had ever spoken her name.

  Nein'a… Cuirinnena… Mother…

  * * * *

  Wynn scurried around a domicile tree closest to the forest's edge. She still did not know why there was no one on guard outside, and she could not find Chap anywhere. But as she turned to go back before being discovered, she heard footsteps.

  She ducked low into hiding behind a tree, hoping whoever it was would just pass onward. As she leaned carefully out, she never made it far enough to see.

  Wynn's vision spun blackly on a wave of nausea.

  Her legs buckled, and she slumped down against the tree's base, clinging to its bulging roots as she covered her mouth and tried not to gag. Bisselber-ries and smoked fish rose in her throat from the evening meal, and the combined taste turned sour.

  The loud buzz of an insect or crackling rustle of a leaf in the wind filled her head.

  There were no insects and not even a breeze around her in the dark.

  Wynn had not heard these in her mind for more than a moon. The last time was at the border of the Warlands.

  Somewhere out in the forest, Chap now called to the Fay.

  It had all started with a ritual in Droevinka, when she tried to make herself see the Spirit element that permeated all things. She had been trying to track an undead for Magiere, and then could not end the magic coursing through her flesh. Chap had to cleanse the mantic sight from her. But on the border at Soladran, it began to return in unexpected ways. She heard the buzz of leaf-winged insects whenever Chap communed with his kin.

  Wynn swallowed her food back down, trying to quiet her gagging breaths. She braced for the onslaught of Chap's kin answering back in a chorus of leaf-wings that would make her head ache and the world whirl before her eyes.

  It never came. Only one leaf-wing buzzed in her mind. The sound began to shape into…

  Nein'a… Cuirin'nên'a… Mother…

  A chill ran over Wynn's skin.

  Words? They came in the Elvish dialect of this land. Beneath those were the same echoed in Belaskian and in her own tongue of Numanese. One voice spoke in many tongues at the same time, all words with the same meaning. Again, no chorus answered back.

  Who did Chap call out to? Had he found Leesil's mother so close by? He would never try to commune with her—it would not work. To Chap's own knowledge, Wynn was the only one who had ever eavesdropped on him while communing with his kin. And she had never heard words before.

  The buzz faded from her mind, leaving only a lingering ache.

  But she had clearly heard those words.

  There was no time to ponder another disturbing change in her unwanted gift. Chap was out in the forest, seeking Nein'a, and Wynn could not let him go on his own. How did he think he would speak with Nein'a, even if he found her prison?

  Wynn braced on the tree's trunk and worked her way to her feet. She looked out into the wild and panic set in.

  She could not navigate the forest without someone to lead her. It did not want her… a human. Even traveling with the others, it had tried to make her lost. Leesil, with his half-elven blood, had to concentrate to escape the forest's influence.

  For once, Wynn wished the burden of mantic sight would come. But unpleasant as it was, it only came to her erratically. Once, it had overwhelmed her while she was alone with Chap, her fingers deep in his fur.

  Wynn forced down fear until she reached calm. She closed her eyes, recalling all the sensations she had felt in that moment alone with Chap. She sank into memory until it blocked out all else.

  Chap had sat before her, staring into her eyes. The room turned shadowy beneath the overlaid off-white mist just shy of blue. It permeated everything like a second view of the room on top of her normal sight, showing where the element of Spirit was strong or weak. Chap was the only thing she saw as one image, one whole shape.

  His fur glistened like a million hazy threads of white silk, and his eyes scintillated like crystals held before the sun.

  Wynn opened her eyes, and her food lurched up her throat once more.

  Blue-white mist permeated all things of the forest. She felt so sick inside that it dampened any relief at her success.

  Wynn stepped into the forest, and the trees began to look the same all around.

  She turned too quickly, searching for the way she had come. The world spun in a dizzying blur. Breath pounded from her lungs when she hit the ground on her side, and she struggled up to her hands and knees.

  "Only the mist… see only Spirit," Wynn whispered.

  She tried to ignore the trees' true shapes and focus only on the permeating glimmer of Spirit in all things. Nausea sharpened, but as she turned her head, a sense of place became clearer.

  Wynn saw glimmering silhouettes of trees and bushes, one overlaying the next into the distance, like silent blue-white ghosts in stillness. And beyond was a cluster of bright spots far off.

  They moved, circling about each other like fireflies in the night. Three were higher above the rest, and one of those was larger than the others. A fourth glimmer separated from the largest one and shone in a sharp brilliant white.

  Chap.

  Wynn knew it was him. She scrambled on all fours to the nearest tree, pulled herself up, and stumbled toward him as her beacon.

  * * * *

  Fully dressed again, Leesil pulled the bathing area's curtain aside enough to step out.

  The press of Magiere's body in the hot bath still lingered on his skin. He loved her, but would she still love him when she realized he was only a thing to be used for killing? How long before she could no longer face what he really was? He would have to let her go, if that was her choice.

  Knowledge of the pain yet to come felt like almost an illness in his body.

  He wondered why she kept shaking slightly while immersed in the hot water.

  He'd asked if she was all right. She hesitated, saying it was nothing more than all this mess they were in. Leesil knew better, but battling with Magiere was too much to face. He'd rather have one more quiet moment in her arms.

  She wasn't sleeping well either, and ate too little each day. Yet she showed no more fatigue than himself, perhaps less.

  "There has to be some way to get around Most Aged Father," Magiere said behind
him, pulling her boots on.

  Leesil wasn't really listening. Bowls of cold vegetable stew and a pitcher of water sat to one side of the room's floor. Wynn's scribbled sheets still lay on the ground where Chap had left them.

  "Where's Wynn?" he asked.

  "Probably at the door, looking for Chap," Magiere answered, and pulled the bath curtain fully aside. "She won't be satisfied until…"

  Magiere looked about the empty room, lips still parted in unfinished words. Her breath drew in sharply before she snapped, "That little idiot!"

  Leesil headed straight for the outer doorway. He swatted the curtain aside and looked out. There was no one on guard. Or had Osha gone with Wynn to look for Chap?

  Magiere stepped past him as he looked off through the domicile trees. Then he glanced down toward the distant dockside bazaar. Among the structures there, from canvas tents entwined in briar and roses to the rising platforms in one wide walnut tree, there was no sign of Wynn or Chap.

  Leesil heard footfalls coming his way.

  Osha walked along with a soft smile as he studied an open cloth in his palm. Nestled in the cloth were small brown and cream lumps. He picked one and popped it in his mouth, not even looking up.

  Leesil ignored the young elf and called out, "Wynn… Chap?"

  Only then did Osha raise startled eyes.

  "Stop!" he said, quickening his pace. "Stay. No leave."

  "Where were you?" Leesil snapped.

  Stunned at the demand, Osha quickly closed the distance to Leesil.

  "I bring sweets," he began, stumbling over his Belaskian. "Honey cooked on nuts… for to give comfort. All you will like."

  Leesil wanted to slap the nuts from the witless elf's hand. While this young whelp abandoned his post for dessert, Wynn had slipped off after Chap… wherever that dog had gone now.

  "Get Sgäile," Magiere growled at Osha. "Wynn is gone… get him now!"

  Osha shoved Leesil aside and peered into the tree. He turned about, panic-stricken, and pointed at Leesil as he backed away.

  "Stay," he said, then turned at a run.

  Leesil noticed lights all about him, spilling from doorways as curtains were pulled aside. Here and there, elves peered out at the noise. One or two even stepped from their homes.