Lackey,Mercedes - Darian's Tale02 - Owlsight.doc

by Owlsight [lit]

  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:

  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.

  The musical group consisted of the tervardi, two hertasi playing drums, and four Tayledras who played harp, gittern, flute, and some sort of horn, respectively. It was soon evident, once they struck up a melody, that the tervardi was their vocalist.

  It was also evident why; no human voice could duplicate the haunting sounds that emerged from the tervardi’s fluttering throat as it broke into song.

  Havens! Darian thought, listening with his mouth agape. No wonder they never sing for anyone but Hawkbrothers! They‘d be carried off before you could say “soprano “.’

  “There was a thriving trade in tervardi entertainment-slaves in the distant past, until the survivors managed to gather under the protection of the Vales,” a voice said softly behind him. He turned, to’find himself gazing into the eyes of a second tervardi, this one drably plumaged in black and red-brown. Well, “drab” compared with the first one’s black and scarlet; her markings were quite lovely, and if he hadn’t already seen the male, he’d have thought her quite striking.

  The enormous eyes, so dark a brown as to seem black, gazed back at him with no expression that he could read. “It was easy for the slavers to get what they wished from us,” the female (the singer’s mate?) continued, her voice a softer version of the singer’s though no less melodious. “After all, what male would not sing, when his captors threatened to torture his mate and female chicks if he refused?”

  She saw that I’m not born Tayledras, and she’s testing me - but what should I say? “What song could sound sweet under those conditions?” he countered, after a moment of blankness. “Whoever would order such an atrocity had no heart. The only songs worth hearing are those sung in happiness and freedom.”

  He had only thought that he could not read the tervardi; now he realized that she had the same feather-language as the bondbirds. When she first spoke, her feathers had been slicked down with tension; now she relaxed, the feathers around her beak puffed up, and her face looked rounder and softer than it had a moment ago.

  “You speak wisely for one so young,” she replied, ith trilling chuckle - or a chuckling trill. “What bird fly you?”

  “Kuari, fledged of Huur and Hweel,” he replied promptly, and held out his arm, with a quick Mindtouch to Kuari himself. He braced himself for the weight as Kuari came in, and ducked his head a little to avoid the impact of those huge, silently powerful wings. The only warning that Kuari was near came when the wind his wingstrokes created made a second storm of all the flower petals scattered about.

  His arm strained as Kuari settled gently on the guard, and the great talons closed carefully about the leather. The tervardi trilled something at Kuari, who cocked his head to listen, then replied in a series of soft hoots like those made to nestlings. Then he closed his eyes and reached out with his beak to preen a strand of Darian’s hair.

  The tervardi chuckled again and relaxed further, her facial feathers puffed up so that her beak nearly disappeared. She held out a four-taloned hand - three long claws and one short and opposed, exactly like a thumb. Darian took it without fear.

  “Rrrillia k’Treva,” she said.

  “Darian Firkin k’Valdemar k’Vala,” he replied.

  “A long name,” she observed. “You have not changed it in Tayledras fashion?”

  He shrugged. “I thought about it, but - Tayledras take new use-names when they change, and I haven’t changed, not really. I’m still Darian, with more knowledge and more memories, and a bit more common sense, I hope. I have more skills now, and I’ve got more friends. But when you come down to it, I’m still myself. I’ve grown, but I haven’t changed.”

  “Then wear the name you are, Darian Firkin k’Valdemar k’Vala,” she told him firmly. Sudde
nly, with the lightning change of topic he was to come to associate with tervardi, asked, “And what think you of Sarrrsee’s singing?”

  He waved his hands helplessly at that. “Unbelievable!” he finally managed, “Indescribable! I could listen to him all night!”

  “Well, with pauses for refreshment, that opportunity you will have, passager,” she said, clearly very pleased with his reaction. “Indeed, on so romantic an occasion, we are to sing courting ballads, we two. And that, for outsiders to hear, is rare.” .

  He bowed, hoping that also would please her. “Then I hope you will allow me to thank you in place of my brother Snowfire and his mate, who will be enchanted - and overwhelmed - by the honor you do them.”

  Now she laughed aloud, a silvery gurgle of sound, and spread her arm pinions. “Oh, you are wasted among the mages, passager,” she crowed. “Such delicate speeches mark you as an Elder afore the time!”

  She didn’t give him a chance to reply to that, turning away instead and taking the platform with the other musicians.

  Somehow, the group of musicians managed to go from the first song straight into the next without pause to consult one another - although it was entirely possible they were using Mindtouch instead. The second melody must have been one of the “courting songs,” for first the male sang, then the female, trading melodies and replies until the two strains joined in unexpected harmonies. Darian gathered Kuari to his chest and absently scratched the owl’s back and neck - much to Kuari’s pleasure - while he listened with his eyes closed to be able to better concentrate on the music.

  This song came to a definite end with a moment of silence followed by applause and cheers. Darian opened his eyes again to see the two tervardi bowing slightly in acknowledgment - and the female looked directly at him and deliberately winked before turning her attention back to the rest.

  The musicians launched into a piece that was purely instrumental, and Darian gave Kuari a boost back into the air so that he could rejoin the other bondbirds in the canopy. Then he wandered off, intending to find something a little more substantial than the tiny savories being handed around by the hertasi. He hadn’t eaten since he woke up; Ayshen had kicked him out of bed far too early, and he’d been running errands since. He’d really felt too keyed up to eat anyway, but now that everything was safely over, and nothing disastrous had occurred, he was starving.

  And a couple of tiny bites of sausage-stuffed pastry weren’t going to take the edge off his hunger either.

  The most logical place to look first was the guest lodge - and going there had the added advantage that he could take off his wedding finery and put on something he wouldn’t have to worry about ruining. Once he made his way to the point where the crowd thinned out a little, he made decent progress to the far side of the Vale - although the temptations to stop were many. Besides the group of musicians from k’Treva Vale that included the two tervardi, there were other musicians from k’Vala scattered here and there, carefully positioned so that no group’s music interfered with the music from another individual or group. Darian passed three individual musicians and two groups on his way to the guest lodges; the groups had set up in spaces big enough to allow for dancing. One group was playing a slow-paced, couples dance, and the second a faster, heavily syncopated group dance.

  As he had suspected, the hot pools were in use, though as it was early in the day, they were not heavily crowded. It was a bit of a surprise to see the number of people swimming, though.

  That isn’t my idea of what you do at a wedding - well, maybe I’m just being provincial.

  Wonderful aromas met his nose before he even reached the door of the guest lodges, and the tempting array of food spread out there made him waver in his resolution to change before he ate. Only the fact that his favorite foods were always the messiest to eat made him stick to it, even though the scents seemed to follow him down the corridors and into his room to taunt him.

  He changed quickly, retaining only the new silver belt from his wedding costume, andssprinted back down the corridors, tracking the scents with his nose in the air like a hungry hound.

  A short time later, blissfully nibbling on a square of pastry wrapped around a filling of finely chopped nuts and honey, he felt ready to join the rest of the Vale. He strolled out into the open and started back toward the dyheli meadow.

  Darian stopped long enough to listen to one of the solo musicians, then obtained something to drink from a passing hertasi and went on to his destination. Arriving just in time for the tervardi to begin singing again, he sat himself down near the platform on the soft grass and proceeded to lose himself for some undefined length of time while the music created fantasies in his mind.

  When he emerged from the spell that the music cast on him, he found that he had company. Beside him, with her blue eyes still filled with the dreams that tervardi singing sent into her mind, was Summerdance.

  He had not seen her for the last few days, but that was no great surprise, as they had both been working on the wedding preparations and their errands hadn’t overlapped. In addition, she was apprenticed to Steelmind, the specialist in plants who was the caretaker (among other things) of most of the garden spots in the Vale, including the herb garden. As a consequence, she hadn’t had any free time over the past three or four days.

  He was happy to see her at last, and glad that he had changed into what had been his “best” outfit until he got the one for the wedding. She certainly looked spectacular, gowned in something silken that flowed over her, a waterfall of luminous fabric in several shades of green. She wore as ornaments a collar of braided gold, silver, and copper wire, with strands of crystal beads and feathers braided into her black hair.

  She smiled at him, and nodded her head at the platform. “What do you think?” she asked. “This is the fourth time I’ve heard this group; they travel among the Vales, and we try to get them to come once every year or so, but this is the first time they’ve come for a pledging.”

  He tried to come up with enough superlatives and failed. “It’s the kind of singing you hear in dreams and know you can’t reproduce when you wake up,” he said finally. “There’s nothing like it.”

  “And nothing more beautiful, except when a tervardi flock sings in chorus, and I’ve only heard that once,” she agreed. “I had to go to k’Treva for that, but it was worth the journey. I got to see them dance, besides singing. Do you dance, at all, in Valdemar?”

  “Every chance we get,” he laughed. “But if you’re asking if I, personally, dance - I do, and I learned a couple of dances from the team while I was with them, too. Is this an invitation?”

  “Well, the group is taking a break, so there isn’t anything going on here for a while,” she pointed out. “And it’s a lot more fun to dance when you have a partner. Round dances are all right for children, but couple dances and group dances are livelier and more interesting.”

  “That’s the truth,” he agreed as he stood up, then extended a hand to her to help her to her feet. He took the lead, since he knew where the dancing circles had been set up, and as luck would have it, the first one they came to was just starting a new set as they arrived.

  He soon saw how she had gotten her use-name; she as quick, graceful, light on her feet, and evidently untiring. He had no intention of quitting before she was ready, and found himself panting and with a raging thirst by the time the musicians paused for a break themselves. He was half afraid that she’d suggest finding one of the other dancing circles, but she took pity on him. Laughing, she led him to the side of the circle and left him for a moment, only to return with cool drinks for both of them.

  He didn’t know any of the people they’d been dancing with, but they all knew who he was - not so difficult since he was the only outsider in the Clan! With his brown hair and eyes he couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else, not when the only variation on blue eyes, golden skin, and black hair among Tayledras or Kaled’a’in was the blue eyes, golden skin, and white hair of mages
who’d worked with Heartstone and node magic.

  Oh, not quite true - some scouts, if they had white hair, dyed it in patterns spring through autumn to camouflage themselves. But none of them had plain brown hair.

  For the most part, his erstwhile dancing partners were just as winded as he was, and the hertasi circulating among them with more of the refreshing mint-flavored drink soon found themselves emptyhanded. Summerdance was the only one who still had breath to talk; she introduced him to the other dancers, but he promptly forgot most of their names. He had just about caught his breath and cooled down when the musicians began again and she drew him back into the circle for another round.

  It wasn’t until after the third round was complete that she professed herself tired, and by that time his legs were getting wobbly. When she suggested a hot soak, he was only too happy to agree.

  But when she led him, not in the direction of the communal pools, but down a tiny, vine-shadowed path that threaded between trees away from the sounds of celebration, he started to wonder if she had something more than a soak in mind.