Within a moon, the three dTelfur had become unquestioned members of the large family at Vyck’s cottage. Nearly sixty people called the circle of cottages and surrounding gardens and grounds their home. Three of Noah’s children had moved over with their families from the Mytree compound after Roan threw the reprehensible festival celebrating the demise of the dragons and their slaves. Calien had joined them when her niece married Stagree. Jaythree had moved over from Hundred’s home just before Tor was born to be closer to the healer and her apprentice, Noah’s youngest, Deeno and then stayed when she decided to study healing as well. But the rest of the members were made up of the families of the thirteen orphans Vyck had taken in during the fever of 124 and they all welcomed Hardt and his foster son and father as long lost friends.
Hardt kept himself to Vyck’s compound and Hundred’s, never wandering unaccompanied out into the deeper forest or along the willowcreek. But Mobious, unrecognizable as Hardt’s companion, wandered freely through the large shale. The landers he met often offered him food in return for his help with one task or another though usually he came away with new knowledge and skills which he would have deemed payment enough. He introduced himself, when necessary, as simply one of the children from Vyck’s cottage and the knowing Strayers winked and invited him to visit anytime he wanted to get away from the loners.
It was thanks to one of these odd jobs that Mobious was in a position to hear about Janen’s successful arrival in Stray. He was helping a baker who had no children of his own to carry loaves out to a dragonbed where shalers were cutting stone for the castle. As Mobious was unloading the cart he overheard the baker, Kiernan, exchanging gossip with the woman in charge of organizing the stone cutting.
“Have you seen the new Weary folks’ cottage, Kiernan? It’s mad.”
“How so?”
“This woman and her three children built the place in under a fortnight. Sent her bond to quarry the stone all by himself, poor sod, but he seemed happy to get away from her.”
“Travelling can be rough on a couple.” Kiernan nodded his head in understanding, but the forewoman called him out on it.
“You’re single and you were born here. What would you know about either?”
The baker raised a friendly eyebrow at the woman, “I imagine travelling must be rough on a couple.”
“Ha,” The woman smiled back. “I imagine that woman must be rough. Fifteen suns and she’s got the nicest cottage I’ve ever seen. Roan’s going to greet the family in a few and invite them to help with the castle. If we can’t get Stagree for the carvings, whoever in that family decorated their columns would be almost as good.”
“Columns? What kind of place is this?”
“I don’t think it’s strictly Weary’s style of building and it definitely isn’t all ours. Her designs are ingenious. You should go check it out. Perhaps they need some baked goods.”
“I do have some treats I could throw into a welcome basket.” Kiernan turned to Mobious, apparently thinking about it, and winked before he turned innocently back to the solidly-built forewoman. “Would you like to go with me? We could have a picnic beforehand.”
Mobious wished the baker had asked him along. He would have accepted with far less convincing than the stonecutter woman. But though he trusted Oyahu, Janen’s faux-bond, he thought that Janen herself would have had difficulty concealing her familiarity with the vizet. So in the end, he found out from Kiernan where the new cottage was located and went home to let Hardt know that the plan was working well so far.
Another moon passed before they heard that an old man had shown up at Hundred’s household looking for Wray’s lover, Luyer. Luyer, little Sophie’s father welcomed the old man warmly as his mother’s brother. Luyer had always tanned easily and he had dark hair and dark eyes which matched his dark, slightly odd-looking uncle. Stagree told them that the uncle’s name was Truuve and later, during a medical examination by Calien, Truuve told Hardt, Mobious, and Neesch that he had met Luyer in the woods by chance. The man had figured out who he was from snippets of conversation he’d overheard in both Vyck and Hundred’s compounds. Wanting to make up for Wray’s rude welcome of Hardt, Luyer had suggested the uncle ruse and Truuve agreed. He told them that Wayz and Arctege had left the encampment only a few days after Janen’s group and that Edwarg and Falail were hiding all evidence of the swamp camp and planned to hike around into Stray in just a few suns.
Edwarg showed up at the doorway to Vyck’s cottage half a dozen suns later, looking to offer his assistance to the shale’s healers. Calien taught him advanced lander care and he taught her how to care for the dTelfur, especially the aging dTelfur. Together they dedicated themselves to finding a way to fix Neesch’s hands so that he could accompany himself on more than just drums. Neesch himself had seduced the services of many of the younger children to help him create new instruments he could play with his old hands.
Early fall hailed the arrival of a couple of unexpectedly social old hermit ladies from the western forest who set themselves up, with Calien’s permission, in the healer’s empty cottage. They welcomed visitors and spread the word that they intended to run a nursery, an old-world tradition, where parents could leave their children when they needed to work or travel without them. The idea spread like wildfire through the shale and soon the two old ladies were surrounded with young friends and generous payments in food and furniture.
All in all, within six moons of Hardt’s meeting with Hundred, seventeen new settlers had moved comfortably into Stray Tor’s society without anyone any the wiser.
Eight
∞
Hundred swam to a shallow area where she could use the trunk of a fallen tree to help her stand. It was going to be a bright day but the low sun had yet to burn away the night’s chill and Hundred felt it bite at her skin as she stood. She had never grown accustomed to her blindness and realized, belatedly, that she was standing to get a better view of the creek’s swimming hole where Mobious had been underwater for more than a few minutes. Instead, she leaned against the trunk and turned her face to the sun, crossing her arms over the shapeless breasts she’d so prized in her youth.
Mobious flirted with her and blushed each time she stripped down to swim with him. Ker insisted he still loved her body and certainly put words to action, but for herself, Hunny missed the firm, perky roundness she could cup in her hands while a child fed. She lifted her hands from the trunk to cup them now and winced at the stiffness which wouldn’t let her hands curl around the sagging breasts. Even her hands were failing.
Writing left them cramped and aching. The sign language she used with Mobious and Jaythree tired her. And there were no salves or herbs that did her any good these days. Edwarg’s new ideas had inspired Calien for a short while but Hundred’s weak body had eventually rejected every effort to strengthen it or reduce her pain. It was this continual struggle which convinced Hunny that no matter what any of the healers said, or her children, or friends, she would soon be gone from this life. She much preferred the literal translation of the dTelfur’s iorden to the lander’s dead.
Too often now her mind dwelled on goals not accomplished rather than allowing her to revel in her successes and her happy children. But today would release some of the weight on her mind. Today would also see the loss of one more of her children as Venoah and Tienta had chosen to go with the party of Strayers leaving for Pace. Pacere, she mentally corrected herself.
Originally Deeno, Venoah’s lover, and their children planned to relocate. Deeno had studied hard with Edwarg to learn all she could about dTelfur physiognomy. From the moment she’d overheard Neesch mention the large dTelfur settlement in Pacre, she’d planned to go help their healers. All of her time and effort since had gone into learning the dTelfur language and culture. All of the dTelfur were impressed with her work. It was her meeting with Wayz and Arctege to discuss care of the young that first shook her self-confidence and got Hundred’s granddaughter Tienta involved.
The ladies, not knowing how little the lander healer knew, were blunt. They started with how to care for dams recovering from labor fever and egg laying. They hadn’t even gotten into caring for the egg when Deeno walked out. When she had recovered herself, she went to Hardt for verification that the old women weren’t just messing her around and Hardt privately told her the story of Mobious’ hatching and Annie’s and let her in on how grossed out Sophie had been at Jaythree’s live birth. He encouraged her to seek out the elder dTelfur and get their hatching tales.
Deeno, no longer trusting her own senses, took Tienta with her. The girl was enthralled with the tales and with Wayz and Arctege’s more graphic information and as soon as she returned home that night, she told her mother that she was going to Pacere to help with the dTelfur in their nursery, and at the hatching ground if they would let her. So, of course, Venoah had decided to go as well.
And then Deeno’s older brothers, Kof and Don with only a little prompting from their Aunt Hunny, asked if they and their families could go as well. They regretted leaving their triplet sister behind, but she was still living at the Mytree compound and once they were told the secrets of the dTelfur settlers, they sadly agreed that she could never handle living in Pacere.
Soon, Hundred hoped, the departing Strayers would live in harmony with the dTelfur of Pacere, in full awareness of their existence as the people of Stray Tor were not. They would find the peaceful coexistence Sophie had told Hundred that she longed for.
A breeze picked up so Hundred slipped back down into the water and pushed off towards where she’d last held Mobious’ hand. She’d started swimming with the boy last summer and was grateful he’d reintroduced her to the pastime. The water relieved many of the pressures on her body and this spot reminded her of all the happy times she’d had as a girl, learning to swim from Noah and later, playing with Ker and Firth and Calien. Last fall she and he had continued their swims right up until ice started forming of the waters overnight and today was the first they’d been in since, even though it was already late spring.
Calien had caught them sneaking off every earlier time and refused to allow it on the grounds that the cold water was not good for Hundred’s health. So this morning, Mobious had snuck into Hundred’s room and, apologizing to Ker, spirited her away before the sun was even up. They breakfasted on hoskas and smoked fish until the sun was high enough for them to risk the chill. Now, Mobious was swimming around on the bottom collecting rocks and shells for a necklace which Hundred would eventually give to one of her many grandchildren as she had all the others he made for her.
Would her grandchildren live to see the dragons fly again? she wondered. Hardt had told her that he believed it would be nearly another century before Mobious could even begin to really try waking them, but Mobious was clearly not convinced of this. He had confessed his fears and failures to her during their many swims. Knowing nothing of dTelfur magics, she could only listen and console which, she knew, was generally all the help anyone could give to an adolescent boy. She told him, and she believed, that he would wake the dragons one day. Just thinking about the problem productively as he was and learning as much as he could about all kinds of magic would take him every day a step closer to their reanimation. Just as Hardt’s every step took him closer to reconciling the dTelfur and lander societies as he had intended when he set out from Stray two hundred and seventy-three season earlier.
Two hundred and seventy-three season. Hundred wondered again what right she had to ask him to complete the task he’d set out to accomplish.
Mobious burst out of the water beside her. She reached her arms out for his touch. His hands were filled with treasures which he led her over to the shore to examine. He hopped out of the water to grab a blanket for Hundred as she ran her fingers over the stones and the wet reeds he’d gathered to string them together.
“When I was little,” Mobious began, “I used to perform natural miracles.”
Hundred listened as he dried himself and gathered clothes from the embankment.
“My second miracle was to create a tiny lake where there had been none before. I did it because I was falling down and then Hardt was and I knew that water wouldn’t hurt. I remember knowing that. That water wouldn’t hurt.” His voice stopped moving around and he sat down beside her, feet in the water. “There were five more after that and then I went dry. I don’t know why I could do any of them and no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember how I did them. But I think back on those miracles and I know that I can wake the dTur.” Mobious’ tone was different, more determined than she’d heard it before. Hunny turned her empty eyes up to him as he went on. “But I can’t wake them from here.”
“Ah.” She traced lazily in the dirt.
“I have to go back to the village, Hunny. Could you convince Hardt that I have to go?”
She wiped a hand over the ground in front of her, smoothing the dirt to a writing surface, stalling as she considered. Then she wrote, “Why do you need Hardt’s permission?”
“I want him to go with me.”
“Perhaps he will go with you, if you first go with him.” She wrote long hand so he wouldn’t misunderstand.
“Where is he going?”
“He hasn’t answered his summons yet. He needs to go to the queen and tell her his tale.”
“I could be killed as easily there as here and then the dTur would be lost.”
“You don’t have to tell her who you are.”
“Hundred,” Mobious began.
“Mobious, Hardt left here to pay dTserra’s bloodprice…”
“I was his bloodprice, raising me.”
“You’re not much of a punishment, kid.” Hunny smiled wryly at him and let him help her slip into her long nightdress before she wrote more. “My point was, however, that he intended to leave here and go explain to the kimoet what really happened between he and dTserra and Sophie in the burntbos that morning. He meant to go and tell them not to fear or fight the dTelfur.”
Mobious thought about this as he gently squeezed Hundred’s long hair dry with the blanket. “Your brother, Noah, he thought the dragons ate people.”
Hundred nodded, “and that you were simply their slaves. Most of Stray Tor still thinks that.”
“Yes, but Hardt told Noah differently before he left.”
“Your atchs,” Hundred drew the word with the symbol Hardt had told her Sophie used when she was teaching him about dTelfur relationships, “didn’t have much proof then.”
“But Noah believed him. His children don’t fear us.”
“Half of them don’t. Noah had nine children. Four still live with their mother in the Mytree compound believing the worst, one lives with me in doubt, three live at Vyck’s, and one left in disgust at Roan’s ignorance before the 169 festival.”
“Nine children and he had only thirty-four when he died?”
“Eight with his bond Wrixt and one with Liecia’s mother.”
“Hunny, you make my point. Why does Hardt need to go to Voferen Kahago when there is so much work to be done here?”
Hundred gathered up all she knew about dTelfur life and tried to create a metaphor that Mobious would understand. “There will be fifteen dTelfur here in this tiny bower to quietly influence opinion. But our Vize, the queen, is the one who makes big decisions for the land. We follow our Vize and there are no dTelfur in our main village to show her the possibilities. Hardt must do that. We need to plant a seed in our land so that when you waken the dTur public support for the dTelfur will have grown and spread and been woven into a bower which will shelter you and the dTur from harm.”
“Why Hardt?”
“His name is known. He fought a dragon and won. And, he has an invitation from the kimoet to go and teach them how to fight the dragons.”
“Okay, Hundred. We’ll go to Voferen Kahago. And then, back to the village.” Mobious slipped the shell necklace over the old lander’s head and setlled it around her neck, smoothing the long, brittle hai
r over it and down her frail back.
Hardt too looked over his life, seeing what goals he could still achieve before his old and tired body gave out on him. Another hike was not appealing to him, but with no dTur to bear him up, he resigned himself to the effort. By dinner that same night at the tiny festival the two dTelfur-friendly compounds were holding in the clearing of Vyck’s cottage, Hardt and Mobious were packed and ready to announce they would be leaving with the Pacere-bound travelers.
All of the Stray Tor dTelfur had come to the special dinner as well as some other special friends from the shale. Not everyone present was aware of the dTelfur. All of Noah’s offspring were present as well as his bond, Wrixt. Frair and Heigna were there without their children or grandchildren. And though they’d been invited, Jed and Drowlen did not come. But their second child, lord Roan did come with his bond and all four of his sons. So though there were private conversations held with beyond the corner of the cottages, no one spoke openly of the real reason for the Pacere emigration.
Hardt was already unwelcome in much of Stray Tor and his association with the dTelfur was known. So when he stood to say good-bye, he pulled a rolled parchment from the pocket of his long shirt. It was not sealed. Instead it was tied lightly with a grungy blue ribbon. The edges were frayed and the back of the parchment was soiled with smoke and dirt and even drops of water and blood. He held this roll up over his head with his left hand, the arm which sported his newly cleaned guarde honor ring with its engraved claw marks and flames.
Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel Page 34