Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Darian’s heart sank a little at that, but he resolved that he would manage to get along with whomever Starfall found for him, for it would be poor repayment for all that the Tayledras had done for him to quarrel with the teacher they assigned him.

  “I actually have someone in mind,” Starfall went on, watching Darian closely. “And I think this might be the best possible combination of student and teacher if he’s free - but I won’t hear from him for a while.”

  “In that case,” Darian said bravely, “I hope that he is free. I trust your judgment.”

  In the meantime, his mind buzzed with questions. Just what was a Healing Adept? Was he going to be an Adept when he was finished with his learning? How hard was it to learn? Who was this person that Starfall spoke of with such caution? Wasn’t he in k’Vala Vale?

  “In the meantime,” Starfall went on, “we will continue your lessons as best we can. One thing that you can do, even while you are settling in, is simply to observe. One day soon - certainly before the year is out - you will be returning to your new Vale near your old village; what you do with it in the beginning will set the character of the place for all time. You should begin thinking now and planning now, even though many of your plans will not come to fruition in your lifetime.”

  Darian nodded, for he had already had some thoughts along those lines. “Yes, sir,” he answered. “Is there anything else I should do?”

  “Only that you should get to know the folk about you - and if you see a way to make yourself useful - ” Starfall stopped, and smiled. “Well, I know you, and I know that I needn’t tell you that. Enjoy a bit of a holiday; I think we will resume your studies after the celebration, for if you are going to take a break before you begin, there is going to be no point in starting anything before then.”

  Since those words were clearly a dismissal, Darian thanked him, and left him alone again.

  But from the twinkle in Starfall’s eyes when he mentioned the “celebration,” it was obvious that Darian’s guess was right.

  And just wait until Nightwind and Snowfirefind out!

  Four

  How can a ceremony be so solemn and so unrestrained at the same time? Darian wondered, though he made very certain that his thought was tightly under shield. It wouldn’t do for anyone to “hear” him; especially not now.

  He’d been standing here for what seemed like half the day, though it couldn’t have been even half a candlemark. As Snowfire’s nearest junior male relative, he had found himself drafted for what he could only think of as a High Temple Ceremony, with every bit of ornamentation and trimming a notoriously ornamental people could fabricate for the occasion. He was right up in the center of the circular raised platform that had been erected yesterday in the dyheli meadow, that being the only cleared place big enough to hold everyone. He wasn’t alone, of course; he was one of the “wedding party” along with Snowfire and Nightwind, three k’Vala Elders, Nightbird, and six independent witnesses unrelated to either of the two being joined.

  Now, given the length and seriousness of the ceremony, and the importance everyone attached to it, the logical assumption would be that both the participants and the assembled Clans watching it would be as sober as presiding judges and solemn as a Herald in full formal array.

  Wrong.

  Even though the audience was quiet, so quiet Darian heard the occasional cough or shuffling of feet, they were all grinning from ear to ear, and it was obvious that they were barely repressing their exuberance long enough for the ceremony to conclude. Everyone seemed to consider the whole thing to be a grand joke at the expense of the long-suffering mated pair, and the best reason ever created for a no-effort-spared, Vale-wide festival.

  The long-suffering aforementioned pair were not told what was in the offing until well after the preparations were complete, and it was obvious that the thing would take place even if the two main participants had to be carried to the Pledging Circle, bound hand and foot and gagged. There had, in fact, been a suggestion that holding the ceremony under such conditions would be rather amusing, though Snowfire leveled a glare at the person who’d made that suggestion that was so intense he was probably still putting balm on his burns.

  One way or another, it was clear that Snowfire and Nightwind were not going to escape k’Vala’s plans for them. So they agreed to go through with it all, with acute embarrassment, but what Darian considered to be astounding good grace.

  The wedding garments alone must have taken months to complete; if the hertasi enjoyed dressing up their human charges as if they were big dolls, this time they had dressed their subjects up as if they were a pair of sacred images!

  Take Nightwind: part of her hair had been piled up on the top of her head and secured with beaded and bejeweled combs and skewers, while the rest was in braids entwined with more beads, tiny crystals, silver charms and silver chains. At the moment there was only a single feather in her hair - one of Kel’s, set in a silver-and-crystal clasp. Her robes, sky-blue and embroidered with silver gryphons (both realistic and representations of her badge), had a train so long it needed its own attendant to manage it, and sleeves that trailed along the ground nearly as far as the train. She probably wouldn’t have been able to move if Nightbird hadn’t been there to help carry and arrange the train. Around her neck were two necklaces. The first, a slender silver chain that encircled her neck so that its pendant lay in the hollow of her throat, was a simple one and the twin to one that Darian wore. The pendant was a hawk-talon, mounted in silver and accented with a blue moonstone. The second was a huge silver pectoral collar of thin flat strands twisted and twined about each other in a way that had made Darian dizzy when he’d tried to trace their routes earlier; her badge as a Silver Gryphon nestled into the front as if the collar had been made to accept it - which, obviously, it had. Her final ornament was a belt that fitted about her hips and hung to the ground in front, made of more flat silver strands which matched the pectoral collar.

  Nor did she outshine Snowfire. His robes, though lacking the overlong train, were otherwise similar. Also in sky-blue and silver, his featured owls embroidered on them, and a silver-ornamented sleeve-glove that extended to his shoulder. He wore a pectoral and belt no less magnificent than Nightwind’s, but differing from hers in that his featured enormous blue moonstones cut to resemble the moon in her several phases instead of Silver Gryphon badges. Both of them wore blue-dyed deerskin boots with silver trimmings - not that anyone could actually see them under all that finery.

  To Nightwind’s left stood her sister Nightbird and Kelvren; to Snowfire’s right stood Darian and, on a single enormous stand, Hweel, Huur, and Kuari, side by side. Had their bondbirds been smaller, both Darian and Snowfire would have been carrying them, but the weight of the eagle-owls rendered that impractical.

  Nightbird wore a scaled-down version of her sister’s robes; with no train, sleeves that reached only down to the ground instead of trailing out behind her, embroidery only on the hems of the skirt and sleeves, and an embroidered belt instead of a silver one. Her jewelry was limited to her Silver Gryphon badge at her throat and a couple of silver hair sticks with pendants of blue moonstones. Darian, however, wore something entirely different from Snowfire’s outfit, although it was in the wedding colors of silver and blue.

  Instead of a long, floor-length robe with hanging sleeves, he had on a blue silk shirt with a sliver-embroidered placket, long sleeves gathered into silvenembroidered cuffs, and a band of silver embroidery at the hem of the shirt. Like Snowfire’s robes, the embroidery on his shirt was of owls. The long shirt was held in at the waist, like a gathered tunic, with a silver belt worked with more owls. Beneath the shirt he wore absolutely plain blue silk breeches and boots similar to Snowfire’s, and over the entire outfit, he wore a blue, floor-length silk-velvet vest.

  It was the vest that had touched and pleased him and brought a lump to his throat when he first saw it, for the hertasi had duplicated in silver the embroidery that his mother had done
on that cherished but long-outgrown leather vest she had made for him.

  Darian carried Snowfire’s weapons, his bow and quiver, climbing stick, and short sword and daggers. Nightbird carried Nightwind’s. This was supposed to show that both were warriors in their own right, and expected to defend each other on an equal basis. A rather nice touch, Darian thought, especially since there were no other weapons anywhere in sight - other than the occasional belt-dagger. Warrior to warrior, man to woman, mage to Healer, it was a good pairing.

  The six witnesses were arranged behind all of them in a half-circle; consciously or unconsciously, they had each dressed in a different rainbow color and had arranged themselves in rainbow order - purple, red, orange, yellow, green, blue. The three Elders, one woman and two men, all with silver-white hair, all wore green with gold embroidery - one with a motif of suntail hawks, one with cooperihawks, and the third with peregrine falcons. None of the Elders or witnesses was closely related to either Snowfire or Nightwind; this was according to custom of long standing.

  The audience - as much as Darian had been able to see of it - had turned out as splendidly arrayed as the witnesses and the Elders. It wasn’t all humans either, for there were plenty of hertasi in embroidered vests and sashes or curiously cut robes, dyheli bedecked with flower wreaths and ribbons, and gryphons in jeweled harnesses. There were kyree in attendance as well, but they flatly refused to bedeck themselves in anything, and amid the riot of color their gray fur left them blending with the shadows.

  The ceremony began with the leftmost of the three Elders speaking first.

  “Here stands before us this day, Nightwind k’Leshya, warrior, trondi‘irn of the Silver Gryphons, Healer among the Kaled’a’in,” Elder Leafspear declaimed. “Here stands before us Snowfire k’Vala, warrior and mage, co-leader of the first expedition into Valdemar, well known to all of us. These two wish to join together in sight of our clans, to be as a living bridge between k’Leshya and k’Vala. If there be any here who object to this joining, give tongue that we may hear and consider what you have to say.”

  He waited a moment, but of course there was no objection - though Kel looked around so fiercely that anyone who might have considered doing so would instantly have reconsidered the idea as a very bad one. Perhaps that was the idea behind having such firm friends stand on the platform with you. . . .

  “For this joining, Nightwind k’Leshya pledges to remain here, far from her birth-home, to bring her skills to k’Vala. For this joining, Snowfire k’Vala pledges to give her home, hearth, and hand, that she never feel the loss of her birth-home and all she has left behind. For this joining, the Elders of k’Vala and k’Leshya have sworn to honor these pledges in their stead, should ill luck befall either.”

  He paused again for effect, then continued when virtually everyone nodded in agreement.

  “The Vale is more than this place and its Heartstone; if the Heartstone were no more, if we sought another home, where we were would still be k’Vala. There is no k’Vala without the people; there is no Clan without all of us. Our strength is in our bonds to one another, and to make another bond strengthens us all. To make a bond between two so near in heart, yet so different in origin, makes both our clans stronger.”

  When he was done, the rightmost Elder, Rainlance, picked up as smoothly as if they were one person and not three.

  “This bond, this joining, is not meant to be a fetter. A joining is a partnership, not two people becoming one,” the second Elder said, though not as sternly as Starfall had said it the first time they took their vows. “Two minds cannot fuse, two souls cannot merge, two hearts cannot keep to the same time. If two are foolish enough to try this, one must overwhelm the other, and that is not love, nor is it compassion, nor responsibility. You are two who choose to walk the same path, to bridge the differences between you with love. You must remember and respect those differences and learn to understand them, for they are part of what made you come to love in the first place. Love is patient, love is willing to compromise - love is willing to admit it is wrong. There will be hard times; you must face them as bound warriors do, side by side, not using the weapon of your knowledge to tear at each other. There will be sadness as well as joy, and you must support one another through the grief and sorrow. There will be pain - but pain shared is pain halved, as joy shared is joy doubled, and you each must sacrifice your own comfort to share the pain of the other. And yet, you must do all this and manage to keep each other from wrong actions, for a joining means that you also pledge to help one another at all times. You must lead each other by example. Guide and be willing to be guided. Being joined does not mean that you accept what is truly wrong; being joined means that you must strive that you both remain in the light and the right. You must not pledge yourselves thinking that you can change each other. That is rankest folly, and disrespectful, for no one has the right to change another. You must not pledge yourselves thinking that there will be no strife between you. That is fantasy, for you are two and not one, and there will inevitably come conflict that it will be up to you to resolve. You must not pledge yourselves thinking that all will be well from this moment on. That is a dream, and dreamers must eventually wake. You must come to this joining fully ready, fully committed, and fully respectful of each other.”

  Now the third Elder, Silverswan, took up the thread of ceremony - and a silken cord of silver and blue. Night-wind extended her right hand, and Snowfire his left, and the Elder bound them together with the cord.

  “Now you will no longer fear the storm,” the Elder said, in ringing tones, “for you find shelter in each other. Now the winter cannot harm you, for you warm each other with love. Now when strength fails, you will be the wind to each other’s wings. Now the darkness holds no danger, for you will be the light to each other’s path. Now you will defy despair, for you will bring hope to each other’s heart. Now there will be no more loneliness, for there will always be a hand reaching out to aid you when all seems darkest. Where there were two paths, there is now one. May your days together be long upon the earth, and each day blessed with joy in each other.”

  With their hands still bound together, Snowfire carefully took a silver hair clasp he had been holding in his right hand, one with two feathers hanging from it - one of Hweel’s and one of Huur’s - and clasped it onto the elaborate construction that was Nightwind’s hair. At the same time, she fastened a similar clasp with one of Kel’s smaller feathers into his hair with her left hand. That had been a rather clever touch; Nightwind had no bondbird, of course, but everyone agreed) that her bond with Kel certainly was of the same order: j

  Then, the ceremony finally over, they turned to face the crowd and as the witnesses parted so that the audience could see them clearly, raised their bound hands above their heads.

  The cheer that erupted literally shook leaves and blossoms out of the trees, showering them both with fragrant petals. More flowers flew at them from the audience and dropped onto their heads from the talons of bondbirds, who seemed to take a great deal of pleasure out of picking a target and hitting it. Flowers were everywhere, the air so thick with them that it looked like a blizzard. Nightwind and Snowfire were exempt from the pelting, but Darian had to put up a hand to fend off all the blossoms intended for his head. Beneath the storm of flowers, the pair paused long enough for a rather heated kiss - a sure sign that though they’d been bonded for two years, they hadn’t become bored with each other!

  No one could have possibly enjoyed a party in those cumbersome ceremonial outfits; however, the Tayledras had long since solved that problem. The six witnesses stepped forward and removed the cord holding the pair’s hands together, cutting it into six pieces and each taking one as a physical token that the marriage had been made. Should they ever decide to dissolve the joining, the six pieces would have to be retrieved and burned in another ceremony. Once the ceremonial cord was taken off their hands, Nightwind and Snowfire simply touched hidden clasps and stepped out of their outer ceremonial
robes, leaving them in the hands of the witnesses, who had been waiting to take them. They didn’t have to hold the garments for long; in a moment, previously invisible hertasi whisked them away - to be shortly displayed on stands during the celebration for the admiration of anyone who wanted to examine them. From this moment on, the robes became the heirloom works of art they truly were, and would be displayed on the walls of Snowfire’s ekele. Now looking far more comfortable wearing shirts and breeches just like Darian’s, they joined the throng of well-wishers. Meanwhile, more hertasi materialized among the crowd with trays of every kind of finger food and drink imaginable. Ayshen appeared at Darian’s elbow to take Snowfire’s weapons, the three owls flew up into the boughs so that the perch could be removed, and a group of musicians took over the ceremonial platform. Darian was amazed to see that one of the musicians was a creature that could only be a member of the tervardi, the bird-people. He’d never seen one until now, for although the tervardi were traditional allies of the Tayledras, there was no colony of them near k’Vala Vale.

  Darian tried to stare without staring; he could not tell if the tervardi was male or female, but if coloration followed the same pattern as in birds, and if the feathers weren’t painted as some of the gryphons’ were, then it was probably male. Its head, covered with scarlet-and-black feathers with a hint of a crest, had a definite beak rather than lips. The arms were feathered as well - wings, but nonfunctional ones, too abbreviated to be of any use even in gliding. There was a broad, feathered tail, and it wore a type of wrapped garment that left the tail free.