The Lord of the Plains (13 page)

When Riley came out of the bedroom that
morning she felt hollow and sad. She saw Aerlid standing in the
main room looking tired, a package wrapped in furs in his hands. He
beamed at her.

‘Riley.’ he said, his voice tired and happy
at the same time.

She looked up at him, though she had not
thought about the package and there was no change to her
expression.

He grinned nevertheless. ‘I have something
for you.’ He didn’t ask her to guess. Best not to ask Riley to
guess things.

He handed the package to her. It was short
and heavy. She placed it on the table and unwrapped it. Slowly her
eyes widened. Then her face broke into a radiant smile.

‘A dagger!’

She picked it up and held it out. She took a
few experimental thrusts. ‘A dagger!’ Considering how small she was
it was not that different in size to her own sword, but when she
grew taller (taller than Aerlid) it would be perfect with a single
handed sword!

Aerlid smiled in relief. ‘Yes, it was not
made especially for parrying, though it will serve. Just make sure
you don’t tell anyone about your weapons or training.’ he said
seriously. As usual, Riley nodded without comment. ‘Now what do you
say about having breakfast in the park?’ he said cheerfully.

Riley rushed back into her room and came out
with her sword. She took a few swings, the dagger held loosely by
her side. Aerlid watched in increasing surprise as she started some
rough movements with them. She parried an imaginary opponent with
the dagger and sliced with the sword. She stopped and started
again, making the sort of movements you might expect of someone who
had had a few lessons in wielding two weapons- or at least seen it
before.

‘Where did you learn that?’ he asked, his
amazement clear in his voice.

She spared him a glance. ‘Nowhere.’

‘Nowhere? Then how do you know to do it?’ he
asked in bewilderment.

‘I thought of it.’

‘You…?’ Aerlid closed his mouth. She thought
of it. Well why not? She had decided these weapons were best suited
for her.

‘Riley, why don’t we go to the park now? You
can put them away and’ he was about to say play, ‘practice with
them later?’ she nodded at him, her excitement somewhat dampened.
She hid them back in the bedroom and when she came out she was
wearing her hat and tie, her beautiful, strange, summery hair
hidden from sight.

She looked up at him as if to ask, ‘is this
right?’ She still wasn’t happy with it, but a new dagger made up
for a lot of things.

He smiled in relief. ‘Come, I think you will
like the park.’

The park was a long walk from their part of
the city but they left early and they enjoyed walking. The roads of
Astar were in the most part paved with smooth stones, though in
some places they were merely hard-packed dirt. Aerlid explained to
Riley that if she saw large, bulky, wheeled things moving down the
roads she was to stay far from them. In fact, she was to stay on
the sidewalk. Despite the varying quality of the roads Aerlid saw
that the drainage was consistently good.

The park was set on a block by itself and
surrounded by dirt roads. There was no fence around it, trees,
grass and bushes just sprung up from the ground on the other side
of the road. It looked vast and open, the buildings surrounding it
were no more than five stories high. Aerlid spared a glance at the
skyline of Astar. The buildings rose smoothly from single story
abodes at the edge of the city to towering sky scrapers in the
middle. The progression was uniform- planned even.

Riley was very excited and Aerlid had to
hold on to her to keep her from running across the road. The fact
that the automobiles were so rare made it even more important for
Riley to be careful. It would be too easy for her to forget that
these roads were wide for a
reason
.

So Aerlid took her hand and led her across
the road into the park. It was cooler under the trees than in the
city. Dirt paths led deeper into the park. There were no benches
that he could see, but the grass would be lovely to sit on after
the chairs in their apartment.

Aerlid thought there was no one else around,
then he heard the sound of feet pounding on the ground. He turned
and saw a man in a dark green suit jogging along the path. He
narrowed his eyes at the colour. A military man? He told Riley she
could play, though only in one tree, which he sat beneath.

As the sun rose higher in the air Aerlid
summoned her down and made her eat. ‘They should be arriving soon.
Do you remember Keila?’ he asked.

Riley looked at him blankly.

Aerlid pushed her no further, though he made
her stay with him while they waited. He continued her education to
make the time pass quicker. He had been thinking of teaching her to
write or read, but it was hard without any material to write on or
read from. Further, he had to think of which language he would
teach her. When he had learnt Seiaan it had been a purely spoken
language. Any writing they did was done in Akran. Was that still
the same? He remembered the pamphlets he’d received when arriving
in Astar (which had been returned now), but he’d been so weak when
he read them he couldn’t remember much about the writing style. It
had been
partly
Akran he thought, at least a bit. Still, he
didn’t know enough about it to start teaching it to Riley.

About half an hour later a cheerful voice
hailed them. ‘Arntar!’

Aerlid stood up, bringing Riley with him.
Keila was walking down the path with a little boy in tow.

Aerlid walked to greet her, tugging Riley
along with him. ‘Keila, how are you, fei?’

They made their pleasantries before Keila
introduced her son. ‘This is Beili.’ she said and pulled the little
brown haired boy forward. ‘He’ll be starting his second year
tomorrow.’ she said proudly. ‘Beili, say hello.’

Beili stuck out his hand and eyed Riley
suspiciously. ‘‘ello.’ he mumbled.

‘Hello. My name is Riley, fa.’ Riley shook
his hand solemnly, then she turned her face to Aerlid, who nodded
at her, yes that’s right, that’s how you say hello.

‘Well, why don’t we go sit down, hmm?’

They bundled the children off further into
the park and Keila chose a likely spot to sit. ‘So Riley, what do
you think of Astar?’ she asked Riley pleasantly once they sat
down.

Riley looked at her blankly, then her eyes
slid to Aerlid. Aerlid dearly hoped she would answer. That sort of
question wasn’t likely to elicit a response from her; she likely
hadn’t thought of it at all, just noted things.

Her eyes slid back to Keila. A nervous look
stole over her. ‘It hasn’t many trees, fena.’ she said finally.

‘Oh, well there are trees here, do you like
to climb them?’

Keila had taken that as negative, Aerlid
saw, but it wasn’t. It was merely a statement.

‘Yes. I like to climb.’ then after a pause
she added, ‘I climb very well. Better than the cats.’

‘Cats?’ Keila asked.

‘Where are the cats?’ Riley asked Aerlid
expectantly, her hands resting on her knees. ‘I have not heard any
cats.’

‘There are no cats.’ he said soothingly,
once again hoping she would leave it at that. Riley and those
damned cats. There’d been many varieties of cats in the lands they
travelled. Riley had for some reason gotten it into her head that
she was to duel them. Not hunt; duel. You did not hunt with a
sword, you did not announce your presence when you hunted. But
that’s what she did. She went up to those cats, more than triple
her size and twice as fast and took out her sword, not attacking
until they noticed her. He’d only seen the aftermath of it once,
when Riley scampered up a tree seconds before being gutted.

‘No cats.’ he said again, his voice faint as
the memories receded.

Riley frowned.

‘No large animals.’ he said firmly when he
noticed that look. Quickly he turned the conversation to something
else, ‘do you come here often, fei?’

‘Why do you talk funny?’ Beili demanded.

‘Beili!’ Keila scolded. ‘We come here
sometimes.’ She said, turning her attention back to Aerlid. ‘Beili
likes to climb trees too.’ And she winked at Riley, who returned
her gaze blankly. ‘Would you two like to go play?’

Riley looked at Beili. Small, human Beili. A
frown crinkled her forehead. She had to take care of Beili.

While she was thinking this Beili got to his
feet in relief, gave a cursory glance to Riley, and ran off to the
nearest tree. He stopped and proclaimed, ‘can’t climb this!’ and
went to the next. Riley, followed at a slower pace. She thought she
could climb that tree, but best if Beili didn’t. He was human after
all.

Keila watched all this fondly. ‘Aren’t they
cute?’

‘Aye.’ Aerlid replied, a bit more worried
than Keila.

As she watched Keila’s smile faded. ‘She’s
very graceful.’ she said, her voice trailing off. ‘I’ve never seen
a child like that…My, she has healed nicely.’

‘Y-yes.’

Aerlid watched Riley carefully, choosing to
focus on Keila’s first comment. He hadn’t noticed much, as she was
no different than the rest of his kind in that regard. His people
were at one with all aspects of their bodies, every hair, muscle,
bone, cell… He didn’t think she had ever stumbled over her own
feet, and she never would. How could you get tangled up with your
own body? How could parts of your body get in the way of other
parts? Were they not all the same? The fact that humans managed it
had been of great interest to his people. They had at first assumed
it was some sort of debilitating neurological condition. Their
offers to try and fix it had been met with responses varying from
laughter to offense.

‘Well that’s good.’ she said, gathering
herself. ‘You must show Jania and I what you did. Most of the time
there’s little we can do.’

Show her what he did? No human had ever
managed to learn even the tiniest part of what he and his kind did.
‘I think we were just lucky, fei.’ he responded.

As Aerlid watched Riley climb in the trees
with the human child he frowned. She was going slowly, more
watching over the other child as a shepherd might his flock than
playing herself. Watching to make sure Beili didn’t stumble or hurt
himself.

He would check her shoulder soon. He thought
he was up to it.

‘It must be nice for you to come home.’
Keila was saying.

‘Oh, yes, yes it is.’ he responded quickly.
‘Tell me,’ he said quickly before Keila could ask any more
questions in that vein, ‘how is the space exploration going?’ this
was something that had interested him greatly. Why would such a
frugal and practical society attempt such a thing?

Keila’s eyes brightened. ‘Oh, well. I don’t
expect Beili or his children to live on the moon, but perhaps their
children’s children…’

‘Live…?’

‘You know there are no gemengs on the
moon.’

He looked at her glittering eyes.

‘Imagine a world where we don’t have to fear
the gemengs. One day, that’s what our children will have.’