Owlknight v(dt-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  A very vague recollection of his uneasy nights prodded at him. I owe it to him to tell him as much as I can remember, even if it isn’t enough to be useful. “I’ve had some - dreams - of late,” he said slowly. “But I don’t remember a great deal. I think I remember the Cat, and maybe a raven, but that’s all. I was exhausted.”

  Shaman Celin nodded. “Spirits often wait until we are exhausted. Sometimes it is easier to reach us then. Sometimes it is to make the messages firmer to us.” He hissed out a long sigh. “Dreams are important,” he said somberly. “It was a dream that sent us south, and visions along the way that kept us going. Some were riddles no more obvious than this one. I wish you could remember more.” He shook his head and sighed again. “If it comes again, this dream - ”

  “If it comes again, I shall wake myself and write down all I can,” Darian told him. “I can promise you that, even if it doesn’t help us now.”

  The weariness of six days of celebration - or “suffering” the celebrations - had taken their toll, and when Darian elected to cut his participation short, Anda and the rest followed his lead with no regrets. As they walked back to the Vale together, beneath a waxing moon, Darian had the feeling that Anda was seething with questions, and was not quite certain how to broach them. Finally, Anda asked the most obvious, and least likely to offend.

  “Did I really see a - a ghostly cat in there? One like the name of the Clan?” the Herald asked, as if he was not really certain of his own senses.

  In the darkness Anda might not be able to see him nod, but Darian nodded anyway by pure reflex. “You did,” he said shortly. “That was the Ghost Cat totem; the creature itself. They say it led them here.”

  “You saw the Ghost Cat again?” Shandi asked excitedly. That certainly got Anda’s attention.

  “What do you mean by again?” he asked sharply, turning his head to look back at her.

  “Darian, Keisha, and I all saw it - well, actually everyone saw it - when we stopped Ghost Cat and Captain Kero’s force from fighting,” Shandi said, freeing Darian from having to say anything more, for which he was very grateful. Anda turned his attention to the person he knew best in the group, and left him alone for the moment, beckoning Shandi to walk beside him so that he could talk to her.

  Shandi gave him all the details of that final moment when she and Karles had brought the child that Keisha had cured back to the tribe - and a Companion and the Ghost Cat spirit had interposed themselves between the two forces, themselves in obvious truce. Anda either had not heard this before, or had not taken much note of the appearance of the spirit, for he questioned Shandi, and then Keisha, very closely.

  “It wasn’t an illusion,” he muttered, as if to himself. Darian judged it safe to put in his own word.

  “No, Herald, it wasn’t - not when Keisha and I first saw the Cat, leading the boy’s brother to us, and not back there in the sweat house.” Darian put as much firmness into his tone as he could. “By that time I was enough of a mage that I would have been able to sense an illusion - assuming anyone in Ghost Cat was capable of producing such an illusion, which they aren’t. Firesong is very certain that no one in the tribe has Mage-Gift.”

  Anda sighed. “I’ve never seen a spirit,” he admitted reluctantly. “And I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve been a bit doubtful that anyone else has, in spite of everything that I’ve heard from folk I trust. Now I’m not sure what to think. I suppose ... I suppose the fact that it appeared and came over to you means that you’ve been accepted without reservation into the tribe, not only by the people, but by the spirits who guide them.”

  “It sounds that way to me, Herald Anda,” Shandi put in eagerly. “And that’s good, really. In fact, it’s excellent that you saw the Cat; it means that the Cat approves of you being here. If I were you, I’d let the Shaman know.”

  Anda pondered that for a moment. “I would rather that you or Keisha mentioned it, rather than it coming directly from me,” he said, finally. “Say that I saw it, and wondered what it meant.”

  Darian admired his restraint - if it had been his experience, he’d probably have gone straight to Celin and demanded to know what had happened. But coming from Shandi or Keisha as an aside, the Shaman would assume that Anda was perfectly used to seeing such portents, and had not been in the least alarmed. The Shaman would also assume, as Shandi had, that if the Cat had permitted Anda to see it, Anda’s presence had been given spiritual approval.

  That was all to the good, and would make Anda’s job a great deal easier.

  Now if only I could be certain of what it all meant.

  Eight

  Darian was cleaning and oiling dyheli tack outside the storage building when an adolescent hertasi appeared at his elbow. That was the only way to describe the phenomenon; one moment Darian was alone, sitting on a section of a tree stump outside the shed that held all the Vale’s tack, the next moment there was a short, skinny lizard standing at his elbow. Darian had finally gotten used to the way hertasi just appeared without warning, and no longer jumped in startlement when it happened.

  “Dar’ian,” the youngster said diffidently. “You will please go to the meadow? Tyrsell has need of you.”

  “On my way,” Darian replied, taking time only to finish cleaning the saddle strap he was working on and put away the cleaned tack. Tyrsell didn’t just arbitrarily send for anyone, but he hadn’t worded the message as if it was an emergency, so Darian didn’t want to leave his mess for someone else to have to clean up.

  It did sound urgent enough that Darian broke into a lope when he was on paths broad enough that there was a reasonable chance he wouldn’t accidentally crash into anyone coming the other way. He thought he had an idea why Tyrsell needed him, though. Anda had been distinctly showing impatience at having to rely on Shandi as his translator, and Darian had the feeling he had taken matters into his own hands.

  Not the brightest idea, when Tyrsell would assume he’d been told everything about the process of getting languages from the dyheli. As far as I know, he hasn’t talked to anyone in detail about it.

  The problem was, since Anda was a Herald, and the Heralds were taught the use of whatever Mind-Gifts they had, Anda might well assume that he knew everything there was to know about mind-to-mind communication. But a dyheli mind was only superficially like a human mind, and the close melding of the human and dyheli required for an instantaneous transfer of language had certain bewilderingly painful side-effects.

  When he arrived at the meadow, he discovered that his guess was correct; Anda lay sprawled on his back in the grass, out cold, bleeding from both nostrils. Darian trotted over and knelt beside the unconscious Herald, then looked up at Tyrsell’s long nose. “How long has he been like this?” Darian asked.

  :Longer than I anticipated, but I have never given anyone five languages at once before,: Tyrsell replied.

  “Five?” Darian raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were only going to give him three - hertasi, Ghost Cat, and Tayledras.”

  :He wanted Kaled’a’in and tervardi as well. He also wanted Shin’a’in, but I have no command of that tongue.: A deer-fly chose that moment to buzz around the dyheli’s eyes. Tyrsell shook his head so that his ears flapped, and snapped at the fly in irritation. It took the hint and flew off, and Tyrsell resumed his contemplation of the Herald and Darian.

  “He’s a glutton for punishment, isn’t he?” Darian asked rhetorically. “Typical Herald. They think they’re invulnerable.” He checked the prone Herald over with Mage-Senses and with the Healer tricks he’d picked up from Keisha. “Well, his pulse is good, he’s breathing regularly, he didn’t hit his head on a rock when he went down, and he seems all right otherwise. Where’s his Companion? I’m sure Eran can give us some help here.”

  Tyrsell flattened his ears in chagrin. :I beg your pardon. I didn’t think to call him. A moment - : He raised his head and looked off in the general direction of the Vale. :He’s coming.:

  Eran didn’t look concerned when he tro
tted into the meadow; his behavior as he bent his head down and stared for a moment at Herald Anda’s face confirmed Darian’s “diagnosis.” A moment later, Eran looked up again, into Tyrsell’s eyes.

  :Eran says that there is nothing wrong with Anda other than that he has overstrained his Mind-Gifts,: Tyrsell reported. :He says that he will pull Anda into waking, so that he can begin to recover properly.:

  “Did you order the tea for his headache?” Darian asked. Tyrsell nodded.

  :The same hertasi I sent for you should be arriving with it in a moment.: Tyrsell and Eran looked into one another’s eyes again, exchanging another set of thoughts, and Tyrsell snorted in dyheli laughter. :Eran thinks we should withhold the tea so that Anda gets a lesson in humility.:

  “Eran, that’s not very nice of you!” Darian said in mock surprise. The Companion snickered - that was the only possible description of the sound that came from him. “No, really, I know you’re annoyed with Anda, but his only real mistake was in thinking that his training in Mind-Gifts would prepare him to meld with Tyrsell. And I don’t think he realized that taking in five languages instead of the three we recommended would hit him so hard.”

  The young hertasi came out of the trees carefully carrying a stoppered jug. “Nightwind gave specific instructions. She says that if this does not do the trick, you are to hit him in the head with it, for being too stupid to live,” the hertasi told Darian solemnly.

  “I heard that,” Anda said from the grass.

  :You were meant to,: Tyrsell observed dryly. :Or so I surmise.: He gave Eran a penetrating look, and the Companion tossed his head and snickered again.

  Darian took the jug, unstoppered it, and discovered that it was not the tea that was commonly used for the treatment of mental strain, but the stronger and more concentrated decoction. Normally one only took two or three mouthfuls - Nightwind had sent an entire jug! A small jug, no bigger than a closed fist, but a jug nevertheless.

  “Hit me in the head with it,” Anda continued with a groan, after briefly opening his eyes and closing them immediately. “I would prefer to die.”

  Darian laughed at the Herald’s woebegone expression “What, and prove Eran and Nightwind right?”

  “I will not be here to suffer their scorn,” Anda pointed out logically, but squinted his eyes open and made an effort to sit up. When he finally got upright, he propped both elbows on his knees, and dropped his head into his hands with a moan. Two drips of blood from his nose spattered on his uniform.

  It was quite clear that Anda had never suffered a reaction like this one to any of his attempts at mind-magic.

  “Did Nightwind say how much of this he was to take?” he asked the hertasi, who stared at Anda in fascination.

  “All of it,” the adolescent said succinctly. He then looked upon Anda with sudden clear disdain and just muttered, “Blood on white,” then disapprovingly shook his head.

  She said he should drink all of it? Darian shook the jug to try to judge how full it was, then gingerly tilted it. It was quite full.

  Well, Nightwind knows what she’s doing.

  “Here, you heard him,” Darian said, pulling one of Anda’s hands away from his face and pushing the jug into it. “Drink it. All of it.”

  “Only if you’ll swear it’s poison.” But Anda clasped his hand around the jug and raised it to his mouth. He was obviously expecting it to taste foul (which, as Darian knew from experience, it did) so although he reacted to the flavor with a hideous expression, he drank it all down, as ordered, before dropping the jug into the grass and gasping, “Blessed godsl What does she make that out of, hoof scrapings? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

  When Nightwind had given Darian this particular potion, she’d followed it with a drink that took the wretched taste out of his mouth. She’d sent no such drink with the hertasi - which meant she really was annoyed with Anda.

  But the Herald was a resourceful fellow; he began pulling up pieces of grass and chewing them, then discreetly spitting them out. His attempt at cleansing his mouth evidently worked, as his mouth stopped puckering and his eyes gradually stopped watering.

  “All right,” he sighed. “I admit it. I was an idiot. I made assumptions and acted on them without bothering to ask anyone first. Now is this vile medicine really going to work, or was this all a cruel hoax?”

  “It works,” Darian promised. “In fact, given how much of it you just drank, we’d better get you back to the guest lodge before it hits you.”

  Anda looked up at Eran, who relented, and knelt down beside the Herald. Anda used the Companion’s back and Darian’s arm to steady himself, and staggered to his feet. Eran rose as well, and Anda draped one arm over Eran’s back, resting most of his weight on his Companion. With that support, and Darian on his other side, they walked slowly back to the Lodge. Tyrsell remained in the meadow, having a silent discussion with the young hertasi.

  “By the way, had you noticed that you’ve been speaking and understanding Tayledras?” Darian asked casually.

  “I have?” Anda replied, his astonishment momentarily superseding his pain. “Great good gods, I have!”

  “Not only that, but you really understand the tongue,” Darian pointed out. “You understand it the way you would if you’d grown up speaking it. You aren’t mentally translating it. That’s why you have the headache, because you just got the language dumped into your head whole and entire, the way Tyrsell first got it from a human. That’s the way the dyheli remember things, but not the way a human does. You have to remember that when you do anything that requires closer contact than simple Mindspeech, Anda - dyheli, tervardi, hertasi, and kyree are not human, and if you aren’t careful, you can get into trouble. Well, Havens, check your new memories about dyheli and how the king stag is chosen.”

  Darian kept silent and let Anda sort through the memories he’d gotten along with the language, and watched his eyes widen. Darian knew why - the king stag was chosen by having the strongest mind in the herd, which meant that, at any time he cared to, he could literally take over the minds of every dyheli in the herd and make the herd do what he wanted. This was useful in an emergency, when individuals might panic and throw the entire herd into chaos.

  And Anda had probably realized that Tyrsell could do the same thing to a sizable number of humans as well, if he chose.

  The fact was, no king stag treated that ability trivially, for if he did, he wouldn’t remain the king stag. And that, too, would be in Anda’s new memories.

  “You have to get some rest, maybe sleep a little, and let things settle into your head,” Darian continued. “Once you do, you’ll be all right.”

  “Which is, I take it, the real purpose of the potion?” Anda replied, with a wry smile. “Not to kill the pain so that I can go back to work, but to make sure that I don’t?”

  “Precisely. And may I remind you that you are the one who got yourself into this in the first place? So do not get angry at us for seeing to your health.”

  Eran curved his head around, stretching out his long neck to do so, and looked Darian straight in the eye before snorting his agreement.

  “At least I’ll never have to repeat this experience,” Anda sighed, as they reached the door of the guest lodge. By that time he wasn’t resting his weight on Eran anymore, and Darian was only walking beside him in case he stumbled.

  Darian turned to leave him - but could not resist replying over his shoulder, “Not unless you meet a dyheli who knows Shin’a’in.”

  Anda only groaned, and looked pitiable. “You’re a cruel man, Darian. A very cruel man.”

  Darian laughed, and left him to return to his chore.

  Since all of Keisha’s handiwork was in the ekele that she shared with Darian, it only made sense to take Shandi there to demonstrate some of the needlework and dyes Keisha had been trying since she moved into the Vale. She’d learned some new techniques from the hertasi, who did most of the embroidery and beadwork for the Tayledras; the little lizar
ds had been happy to share their passion with a fellow addict.

  Shandi was just as enthusiastic as Keisha had been. They soon had threads, yarns, and strip samplers spread out all over the sofa and chairs, plus a few pieces of Keisha’s finished work were down off the walls or out of the wardrobe. In the middle of an animated discussion of new dye colors, Shandi suddenly looked into nothingness, then laughed out loud. Keisha had learned enough by now, though, not to be alarmed at what might have signaled the onset of insanity in anyone but a Herald.

  “What did Karles just tell you?” Keisha demanded.

  “That Anda just pulled a typically stubborn and pig-headed male act, and went to Tyrsell to get the languages by himself. Five of them, all at once. And is suffering the consequences, with no pity from anyone.” Shandi laughed again, shaking her head, as Keisha was torn between feeling sorry for Anda and wickedly pleased that he’d mounted his pride and let it carry him straight over the edge. “Nightwind sent a jug of something to him, with instructions to hit him in the head with it if the potion didn’t do any good.”