Owlknight

by Mercedes Lackey

  The pocket canyon was as welcoming as a conventional hearth in a Valdemaran home. Firelight warmed the air and the stone walls, and if there was no roof, tonight at least there was no need of one either. The men “welcomed” her to the circle simply by making space for her beside Darian and passing a wooden platter loaded with roasted tubers, onions, and venison to her. She was famished, and with a nod and a word of thanks, set to her meal.

  She ate as they did, with her fingers and a small, stubby eating-knife, keeping her head over her platter so that the juices from the meat dripped back down onto her food. The Shaman immediately took command of the conversation, telling the Chief the good news - both that his wife and children were on the way to being cured, and that the Shaman’s young student would soon have the special healing magics of the southerners himself.

  The Chief would not rush to thank Keisha here, in front of the rest of the men, but the look of gratitude he threw at her told her he would definitely be approaching her in private. She sensed that before their arrival, the conversation had taken a dark and foreboding tone, and that the Chief had welcomed the change their good news brought.

  Meanwhile, the food warmed and filled her - and tasted wonderful, especially after the somewhat meager meals of the past few days. As her hunger eased, she started feeling how tired she really was; tired, not sleepy. She was content to sit beside the fire and listen to the men - and Shandi - talking. She had closed her shields in tight around her, knowing that she would be oversensitive after all her work, and as a consequence felt as if she were wrapped in a cocoon that kept the rest of the world at a comfortable distance. She had her footwear off, and her soles baked deliriously from their proximity to the slow fire, as she lay back and closed her eyes for a while.

  The earnest conversation that her entrance had interrupted resumed after the Shaman described with great pride the work of his apprentice. He’s right to be proud; the boy outdid himself, and he’s a fast learner. He’s one I certainly won’t forget.

  But already the conversation had gone back to bleaker subjects. “There is no doubt that Wolverine has taken up what Blood Bear left off,” the Chief said, with a glance over his shoulder into the darkness, as if he feared that a spy from Wolverine tribe might be lurking there. “The difference, though, is that they raid, not destroy. Their raiding parties come farther south every moon; they take everything of value, male children less than five, widows and unmated females of breeding age. If a tribe dares to resist, they cripple the warriors after they have won.”

  “Ah, but first they come all smiles, and offer alliance - or rather, encourage their servitude to Wolverine - ” the Shaman interjected. “It is only if the tribe fights that they raid.”

  Keisha was too tired to feel anything for herself, and too protected behind her walls to feel what the others felt, but the tension and concern beat against her protections and would flood her if she let it.

  “Oh, but alliance means to surrender half of the provisions and goods, and all of the unmated females, and all boys down to the toddlers!” the Chief scoffed. “I do not call that generous!”

  “They have not found us yet,” the Shaman confided to Keisha. “That is why we are unmolested. Our valley hides us well.”

  She nodded; she had not seen the mouth of the valley until they were practically inside it.

  “Your sentries are to be given credit, too, I would think,” Wintersky observed. Steelmind nodded, even as he frowned, and Shandi spoke up.

  “It isn’t just your location or your sentries, is it?” she asked, and looked directly at the Shaman. “You are - concealing. Yow are hiding the tribe, Honored One, using your powers. Aren’t you?”

  “Not I - the Snow Fox hides us, as he himself hides in winter,” the Shaman protested, but he looked pleased. Darian raised his eyebrow at Shandi and smiled at the Shaman in a conspiratorial fashion. The Shaman gave Darian the same smile - Mage to Mage, exchanging the compliment of recognizing each other’s handiwork.

  “I do what little I can,” the Shaman said modestly. “But too much done to hide our people would reveal, rather than conceal them. Wolverine has a Shaman, too, whose power is of the Eclipse, and he will see the use of power should I overstep myself.”

  “That’s why the hunting parties are on their own.” Darian made it a statement. He sighed. “I can’t think of any way of concealing them that wouldn’t betray them just as readily; you are perfectly right to be cautious.”

  “Our skill will conceal us,” the chief hunter spoke up, with all the arrogant certainty of someone who has never met with failure - yet. “We can outwit any Wolverine scout.”

  This time it was the Chief who exchanged a raised eyebrow with Darian. For all Darian’s apparent relative youth, it was clear that the Chief of Snow Fox realized he had a great deal of experience, and Keisha hid her own smile of pride.

  “Why is it that you have no Wisewoman of your own?” Shandi asked, knowing now, after seeing so many other tribes, that when the Shaman was not a healer, his work was generally supplemented by a Wisewoman.

  “She went to the ancestors before she could find a successor,” the Shaman told her, sighing heavily. “That was many years ago. My pupil has the healing touch, and there is another boy who I will train in my own work when he comes to his manhood trial, but it is not fit that I seek out a girl-child to become a Wisewoman. In other times, the Wisewoman of one of our allies would have found and trained such a girl, but we have had little contact with our friends since Wolverine began raiding. We have not had the great Midsummer Gathering for two years.”

  Even as tired as she was, Keisha knew that was a very bad sign; even at the height of the mage-storms, the Midsummer Gatherings had taken place. They were the only time that all the tribes came together under a truce banner; a time for trading, finding mates in other tribes, exchanging information, making alliances. If they had not been held for two years, none of these things were happening, and the peaceful tribes were becoming more and more isolated from each other.

  He looked hopefully at Keisha, who grimaced. “We have another task,” she said reluctantly. “It has been put upon us by both the Ghost Cat and the Raven spirits that we seek the Raven tribe.” She did not say why, but no one would ask if she did not volunteer the information. It would be assumed that it was private business between her people and the spirits.

  The Shaman’s face fell; he had probably been hoping that she had been sent for the benefit of Snow Fox alone, and would remain until both his apprentice and a new Wisewoman had been chosen and trained. Keisha felt badly for him, and added, “I will do all I can to leave you with all that Snow Fox needs.”

  Not that I have any idea how to do that, she added to herself. Healing isn’t like a language that can be dumped entire into someone’s head by a dyheli -

  Or - was it? Could Neta extract everything that Keisha knew about Healing and deposit it in the minds of the young apprentice and anyone else who needed to have it? And if she could - would it be more dangerous to do that than leave them on their own? Having so much information dumped into his mind at once might drive the poor apprentice mad . . . unless there was a way to keep it out of his conscious mind until he needed it. I don’t know. There has to be some terrible price hidden in it somewhere. Inventive or not, it seems too easy somehow. In this world, we sometimes get lucky, but we never get things easy.

  The best creature to ask would be Neta herself - arid that would have to wait for morning. Now she was sleepy, and a warm fire and full stomach were contributing to that; for the moment, it didn’t matter how much anxiety the rest of them felt, it couldn’t penetrate to keep her awake. She wasn’t the only one - there were plenty of hunters and warriors blinking their heavy eyes trying to stay awake. It wasn’t long before the Shaman excused himself, and the Chief offered to send his guests to his own log house for rest. Darian accepted for all of them, and Keisha was glad; beyond the fire the mist was getting heavy, and there would probably be rain befo
re morning. At least tonight they’d sleep dry. And she was too sleepy now to care about anything else.

  Morning brought the unfamiliar sounds of children chattering like a tree full of birds near at hand, and Keisha woke all at once, with no intermediate drowsing between dream and wakefulness. She remembered at once where she was, partly because of the rush of unfamiliar smells, and stretched happily beneath her bright (and borrowed) blankets. There was rain pounding on the roof above her head, and from the sound of it, the storm was good for the rest of the day. If they’d been outside, they’d have started the day soaked again.

  Would rain keep raiding parties stuck in one place? Now that she wasn’t so tired, she remembered the conversation last night, and it wasn’t just the chill and damp draft sneaking under her chin that made her shiver suddenly. Wolverine tribe - they sounded too much like the tribe that had almost destroyed Errold’s Grove.

  Not good news. And we’ll have to get past them to get to Raven. That was worse news; would they have to skulk across the countryside from bit of cover to bit of cover? These raiding parties - how many were there?

  I wonder if Dorian wants to use magic to hide us? The existence of another enemy mage made that potentially as dangerous as going unhidden. How did these people rank mages, anyway - and how strong was he, how skilled? Journeyman? Master? Worst of all - Adept? Would they be unfortunate enough to encounter some sort of mage they had never even thought of, whose powers would be a total surprise? She felt anxiety starting to get hold of her, and fought it off. There was no point in getting worried about something that was in the future - something she couldn’t affect, for that matter. It was not that she disliked planning or even speculating, but there was such a thing as pointless worry in a case like this. This wasn’t her problem - or at least, it wasn’t her problem unless and until Darian asked her opinion. For now, her problem was to work with the Shaman - and she really ought to find out what his name was! No, wait. Hank. Henk. Henkeir. Henkeir Told-

  True.

  That prompted the recollection of her thoughts the night before, about enlisting the help of the dyheli in transferring Healing knowledge directly to the young apprentice, and possibly, (if she could find one) a potential Wisewoman.

  Language was at least as complicated as Healing; the problem with transferring it all at once was that Healing involved the use of power, a power very like mage-energy - and it involved using techniques that could leave the Healer’s mind perilously open.

  But what else did I think of last night - ah, I remember now. Would it be possible to transfer the knowledge in such a way that it only becomes available when the person needs it -

  But no, that wouldn’t work, because they might need it before they were ready to handle it.

  Perhaps - it becomes available when the person masters something - keyed to that -

  No one had ever tried anything like this before, not that she knew of. But just because no one has ever done it before, that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. . . .

  Once again, though, she knew only that she didn’t know enough. She would have to ask the dyheli Neta as she had thought last night, at the very least. Perhaps the Shaman might know something out of his own traditions that would help.

  It would be so nice just to go back to sleep and forget this for a little longer, she thought wistfully. It had been so long since she’d had the luxury of sleeping until she felt completely rested -

  But now that she was awake, her restless mind wouldn’t let her go back to sleep again. Too much to do. She shoved the thought of drowsing away resolutely, and pushed the blankets aside. Like the log-houses of Ghost Cat, the loghouse of the Chief of Snow Fox had little cubicles around the walls used for storage and sleeping in a modicum of privacy. Presumably because Snow Fox was a very prosperous tribe, the barrier between the cubicle and the rest of the house was not a simple curtain, but was one of the beautiful piecework felt blankets.

  It cut off the light from the central hearth fire much better than a cloth curtain would have; it was as dark as a cave in their cozy nest.

  She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the platform bed she shared with Darian, and he stirred. “Getting up?” he asked; he didn’t sound sleepy, and she wondered if he had been awake and thinking as long as she had.

  “I’ve got so much I need to do - ” she began “Anything I can help with?” He sat up, too. “I knew you were really concentrating on something, and I wondered what about. You seemed tense.”

  “I don’t - ” she began, then stopped as a thought interrupted her. Hadn’t she been thinking that the power she used in Healing was like magic? And hadn’t he added his power to hers in the past? Maybe he had an answer, or part of the answer she was looking for. Quickly, she explained what she had been thinking of doing. “Do you know of a way to keep that knowledge locked up until the person is ready for it?” she asked.

  He pondered her question, giving it full attention; she couldn’t see his face clearly, but she sensed he was concentrating, trying to remember something. “I think it can be done,” he said finally. “You’d have to be awfully good, though. I - don’t think I could do something like that. Maybe an Adept could.”

  She grimaced; disappointed, but not surprised. “I’ll see if their Shaman knows of something that would work. You never know.”

  “I might as well get up, too,” he said, levering himself up out of bed beside her, his long hair strung across his face in tangles. “There’s a lot to get done. I think that we’d better stay here until the sick are healed, so we can have Snow Fox’s full support when it’s time to move on. It can only help.” He sounded as wistful as she was, though. “Sometimes I wonder if the only time we’ll ever get to be lazy is if we get sick ourselves.”

  “Don’t even think that,” she chided, and reached for her clothing, handing him his. “We can’t afford to be sick.”

  They both got dressed and Keisha pushed aside the partition blanket, stepping out into the central room. The Shaman’s wife hurried to greet them, handing them bowls of porridge made with crushed nuts and sweetened with honey. It was very good, and a nice change from the breakfasts of cold meat they’d been having.

  They were the first ones awake from their group, although some stirring and muttering indicated that the rest weren’t too far behind them in getting up. Keisha finished her breakfast quickly and got her rain cloak, heading out to find the Shaman and begin the morning’s treatments.

  The Shaman was waiting for her at the house holding all the sick, and before she and his apprentice began work, he made a point of offering her a second breakfast, this time of a kind of bread or cake made of the same crushed nut mixture. She was not at all averse to having more to eat, knowing that she would need all the energy she could get.

  As they ate, the Shaman introduced his apprentice as Lother. Henkeir’s wife made all the meals for the sick isolated here in this house, and had sent extra for Keisha, her husband, and his pupil.

  “Your wife is extremely accommodating,” Keisha said dryly, thinking how much work a woman of the tribes did just to keep her own family fed, clothed, and cared for - never mind adding on the care of a dozen sick people.

  “My wife tells me just how accommodating she is on a regular basis,” he replied, just as dryly. “But I agree with her, even when she is not nearby to hear it.”

  Keisha covered her mouth with one hand, stifling her giggles; young Lother laughed outrignt, and Henkeir grinned behind his beard.

  “I think that this may be the case with all worthy spouses,” Henkeir told them. “Perhaps they fear that if they are too silent, we will come to take them for granted.” He put aside his cup of hot herb drink and stood up. “Are you ready for the morning’s work?”

  “More than ready,” she told him, and the three of them approached the first patient of the day together.

  After rest - and a noon meal that she ate so fast she didn’t even taste it - Keisha went out in search of the dyheli. She wa
s altogether gratified to learn from the Shaman that the dyheli and Karles had been housed in the communal storage house, rather than forced to spend the rainy night and day out in the weather.

  The children, who shed the water like so many ducklings and evidently considered this to be balmy weather, were making a great game of going out and tearing up armloads of grass to feed to the four-legged guests. She spotted a group of them running into the storage house, shrieking with laughter, so laden with long, wet bundles of grass that they looked like so many little walking haystacks. She followed them, and soon discovered why the sport of feeding the dyheli was so popular.

  The dyheli were earning their dinner by taking turns telling stories.

  Of course, when a dyheli “told” a story, it appeared in the “listener’s” head, complete with pictures, sounds, and smells. The children were absolutely enraptured. This was better entertainment than anything they’d ever encountered before.

  It was not yet Neta’s turn to tell a story, so Keisha was able to take her aside and quiz her on the possibility of transferring knowledge rather than language.

  Neta considered the question, then diffidently asked Keisha for free access to her mind. Keisha sat down on a pile of furs and obliged - sitting, in case this turned out to cause the kind of reaction that a language transfer did, and she passed out cold.

  She didn’t drop over, although Neta’s explorations left her with the oddest feeling, as if her mind was a box whose contents were being meticulously turned over and examined, one bit at a time. It felt strangely like the mountain sickness, crossed with being intoxicated on very bad wine, and then being flattened thoroughly with a rolling pin but not minding it at .all.

  :I think the transfer can be done,: Neta finally said, when she’d withdrawn her mind from Keisha’s. :The problem would be that Healing involves development and exercise of mental powers - rather like training muscles for strength. If a young one tried to use the knowledge before he had the strength, it could harm him. Worse than another Healer could fix.: