Winds of Change (7 page)

She hurried across the rest of the grassy space between her and the gryphons. Odd that of all of that gathering, they were the strangest physically, and the most familiar in every other way. . . .

“Sssso!” Treyvan greeted her, extending a taloned fore-claw in a token of welcome. “You are now Tayledrasss, Clansssssib! Do you feel any different?”

“Well, yes and no,” she replied. “No - I mean, I’m still a Herald, and I’m still everything I was before.”

“But yesss?” Hydona spoke gently. “I think perhapsss it isss homesssicknesss?”

She blinked, surprised, and in an odd way, grateful. “How did you guess?”

The female gryphon nodded at the rest of the gathering. “We arrre the only two of
our
kind herrre asss well, except for the little onesss. We know how ssstrange you musst feel.”

She flushed, embarrassed that she could have missed something so very obvious. “Of course. It’s just that you and Darkwind are such friends, it never occurred to me -”

Treyvan laughed. “If it neverrr occurred to you, then I would sssay that iss a compliment on how well we have come to fit in herrre!” he exclaimed. “And trrruly, the hu-mansss of the Valesss arrre not that unlike the humansss of our own landsss.”

“Ah,” she replied vaguely, not knowing what else to say. “Oh, where
are
the little ones?”

“Therrre.” Hydona indicated another corner of the clearing with an outstretched talon; there, in the shadows, the two young gryphlets were sprawled on the grass, listening sleepily to what appeared to be -

A
very
large wolf?

 
- except that it wasn’t speaking, so how could they be listening?

“That isss a
kyree;
they arrre not often in thisss Vale,” Hydona said, as if she had heard Elspeth’s unspoken questions. “It isss a neuter. It hasss taken a liking to the little onesss and hass been kind enough to tell them taless sssince we arrived. I believe it iss called - ” She turned to her mate for help.

“Torrl,” Treyvan supplied promptly. “It wass a great friend of Dawnfire, and iss sstill a great friend of Darrrkwind.
Kyree
neuterss are often yerry fond of little oness of any speciessss; it iss a good thing the childrren arrre both sstrong Mindspeakersss.”

And that, of course, was how the
kyree
was “telling tales” to the young gryphlets; directly mind-to-mind, as the
kyree
who helped Vanyel at the last had spoken to Stefen. Elspeth’s mouth had gone very dry; this was like being inside of a tale herself, the experience being made even more dreamlike under the delicate illumination of mage-lights and moonlight.

She managed not to jump, as something tugged at the hem of her tunic. She looked down quickly; it was one of the
hertasi,
carrying a tray laden with fruits and vegetables that had been carved into artful representations of flowers. It offered the tray to her, and she took one; she hadn’t the faintest notion of what she’d taken, but she didn’t want to offend the little creature by refusing.

It slipped into the crowd, and she bit cautiously into her “prize.” Crisp and cool, it had a faint peppery taste, and a crunchy texture; encouraged by her success, when the next
hertasi
came by, this one with a tray of drinks, she took a glass with more enthusiasm.

This proved to be a light wine; she sipped it and continued to chat with the gryphons, deliberately keeping the subject light, asking innocuous questions about the
kyree
and the other nonhumans, until other Tayledras drifted up to join the conversation. Gradually she began to relax, and to enjoy herself.

When a touch on her elbow made her turn, she found that Darkwind had found his way back to her. He handed her a slice of something breadlike, with something like a tiny, decorative flower arrangement atop it, and slid into the group beside her.

“Your friend Skif and my brother seem to have discovered that they have much in common,” he said by way of joining the conversation, “And they have gone off to discuss weaponry. Knives, I think.”

She shook her head. “That figures. Offer to talk about knives, and you’ll have Skif’s undivided attention for as long as you like. Do I eat this, or wear it?”

He chuckled. “You eat it. I think you will like it; it is smoked fish.”

She nibbled the edge of it, tentatively. The smoked fish
she
was used to generally had the consistency and texture of a slab of wood, and tasted like a block of salt dipped in fish oil. She was pleasantly amazed at the indescribable blend of delicate flavors. As Darkwind chuckled again at her expression, she devoured it to the last shred.

“I have been asked,” he continued, both to her and to the gryphons, “to request the presence of my good friends Treyvan and Hydona at the waterfall, and my wingsib Elspeth at a gathering of the scouts.”

“Ssso?” Treyvan replied. “What isss at the waterrfall? And whom?”

“Kethra, Iceshadow, and my father, among others,”

Darkwind told him. “And, I am told, a very large selection of fresh fish and uncooked meat and fowl. Some of our more sensitive guests, like the
dyheli
and
tervardi,
might be distressed by refreshments of that nature, so we took them out of the way.”

“Wissse,” Hydona acknowledged. “But the little onessss - ”

“Toni assures me that they are not too far from falling asleep,” Darkwind answered, “And when they do drift off, the
hertasi
have promised to keep an eye on them.”

“I
amfamisshed,”
Treyvan said, with a look of entreaty at his mate.

Across the clearing, Elspeth noticed the
kyree
raising its head from its paws, and looking directly at them.

:Every parent deserves some time without the young,:
she heard, just as clearly as if the
kyree
was her own Companion.
:They are too tired to get into mischief that I cannot distract, and anything that wishes to harm them will have to come at them through not only me, but all the defenses of the Vale. And, I suspect, the large white hooved ones.:

Hydona gave in; Elspeth readily understood her reluctance to have the gryphlets out of her sight, considering all that had happened to them, but the
kyree
was right. If the little ones weren’t safe
here,
none of them were. They rose to their feet, folded their wings tightly against their sides to avoid knocking anything or anyone over, and took their leave.

Darkwind led the way up and down yet another path; this one ended beneath one of the enormous trees she had only glimpsed through curtains of bushes and vines. There were quite a few Tayledras gathered beneath it, but for the first few moments, all her attention was taken up by the tree itself.

Simply put, it was so large that an entire house could have been built within the circumference of its trunk. A curving staircase had been built around it, leading up to a kind of balcony three stories above the clearing. Soft lights hung from the bottom of the balcony, preventing her from seeing anything above that level, but she had the feeling that the staircase continued upward. When she shaded her eyes and peered upward, she caught sight of other, fainter lights near the trunk, half-obscured by the enormous branches. The Chronicles had once referred to the Hawkbrothers as the “tree-dwelling Tayledras,” and she knew that Darkwind lived in a kind of elaborate platformed treehouse. So it looked as if that was the norm for the Hawkbrothers, rather than a concession to danger.

At least now she knew
why
they made a point of cultivating those enormous trees. Such marvels could support not one, but several dwellings.

When she turned her attention back to the gathering, she discovered that most of the Tayledras here were dressed very like Darkwind; in relatively “plain” clothing, and with hair either cut or bound up to be no longer than just below the shoulders, dyed in patterns of mottled brown and gold. They looked more like the Shin’a’in than the mages did, and it wasn’t just that their hair wasn’t white. . . .

It’s because they‘re scouts, fighters,
she realized, after a moment. Like Darkwind, they couldn’t wear clothing that interfered in any way with fighting movements, nor could they afford to indulge themselves with elaborate hairstyles. Like Darkwind, they had a certain economy of movement; nothing dramatic, nothing theatrical - nothing done just for the effect. There were strong, well-trained muscles under those silken tunics, hard bodies that saw furlongs of patrolling every day.

She felt herself relaxing further in their presence, even before Darkwind began introducing them to her. These were people who, although they were familiar with magic, had very little to do with it; they were somehow more down-to-earth than the mages in their sculptural robes. And they were more like Heralds than anyone she had met yet.

She took careful note of the names as they were introduced to her, the habit of someone born into politics. Win-terlight and Stormcloud, Brightmoon and Daystar, Earthsong, Thundersnow and Firedance - she matched names with faces, with smiles shy or bold, with personality quirks. Darkwind had explained the Tayledras habit of taking use-names, names that described something of what the person was like. She had to admit that it wasn’t a bad system; it was much easier to match a name with a face when Winterlight (one of the few scouts to grow long hair) had a thick mane that, when he was persuaded to unbraid and unbind it, looked like moonlight pouring down on snow - when Daystar was as sunny of disposition as the twins - and when Firedance was always in motion, never quite still, mercurial in temper and bright with wit. She wondered if she ought to take a use-name as well, though it shouldn’t be hard for
them
to remember Elspeth, Skif, Gwena, and Cymry. Four names were easier to remember than an entire Clan-full.

“These are the k’Sheyna scouts,” Darkwind said, when he’d finished the introductions, confirming her guess that there wasn’t a mage among them. “Not all of them, of course; we still have a full patrol out tonight. But enough for now, I think; any more of us, and you would be overwhelmed with names and faces.”

She smiled, but said nothing. This wasn’t the time to point out that she’d coped with four times their number at ordinary state dinners. True, she had Talia’s and Kyril’s help, and the nobles and dignitaries didn’t look quite so alike. . . .

“You are lucky, Elspeth,” the young fellow called “Stormcloud” told her. “Truly. We are in festival gear now. If you were to see us tomorrow, you might find it hard to tell one from the other.”

Earthsong nodded vigorously. “There is a tale among Outlanders that we are all mage-born copies of a single Tayledras.”

“I can see how they would think that,” she replied after a moment of consideration, imagining them all garbed in Darkwind’s drab scouting clothing, with their hair bound up against snags. If the women - already slender and athletic-bound their breasts, it would even be difficult to tell male from female. “Of course, I’m sure you don’t do
a thing
to encourage that now, do you?”

She was pleased when they laughed at her sally; sometimes the most difficult thing about dealing with a new people was finding out what they considered funny. And as she had discovered on her own, knowing what made someone laugh was the surest shortcut to making him your friend.

“Oh, no, of course not!” Firedance exclaimed, eyes wide and round with mock innocence. “Why would we ever do anything like that?”

The others laughed again at his disclaimer, then settled themselves back where they’d been before Darkwind brought her into the clearing. “We were just having some music and a little dancing,” Earthsong said, as he picked up a flat drum. “We thought you might like to see and hear some of it, so we asked Darkwind if he’d go pry you away from the gryphons.”

“Not that we’re great artists,” Winterlight spoke up quietly, “But we do enjoy ourselves, and I think music is better than any amount of words at telling people about each other. A language that needs fewer words.”

“That’s what our Bards say,” she replied, looking for an inconspicuous spot to put herself, and finally giving up and taking a seat on one of the tree’s enormous roots.

Winterlight gestured in agreement, and picked up something that she didn’t recognize; a trapezoidal box strung like a harp. He set it on his lap and pulled a couple of hammers from under the strings, then glanced at Earthsong. The young scout evidently took that for a signal; he began to produce an elaborate rhythm on his flat drum with a single, double-ended stick; Winterlight listened for a moment, then joined him, not by plucking the strings as Elspeth had expected, but by striking them deftly with the hammers. Within a few moments, others had joined in, either on instruments of their own or simply by clapping. Some of their instruments were things that Elspeth recognized; most weren’t, with sounds that were not - quite - like anything she knew.

The music was far from unpleasant. There were unexpected bellsounds in the rhythm, a wailing wind instrument that added an unearthly element like a singing hawk’s scream, and the occasional whistling improvisation by one of the scouts. It was quite infectious, and she found herself clapping along with it.

It wasn’t much longer before the Tayledras got up to dance. Here was another difference between the Hawkbrothers and her own people. At home, folks danced in groups-ring dances or set-pieces, with a definite sequence to the steps. The Tayledras danced singly, or in couples, or trios at most, and there was no set-pattern to the dance steps. The nearest she had ever seen to this kind of exuberant chaos had been at a Herald celebration when a number of the younger Heralds just in from the field had gotten involved in a kind of dancing contest, demonstrating the wilder steps from their various home villages.