The Eye of the Hunter (24 page)

Inarion then raised his cup and called out:
“Hai, Lian Guardians, hai! Protectors of the world!”

“Hai!”
shouted the gathered assembly, Faeril and Gwylly among them. And each and all drained completely their cups of pure, sweet water.

* * *

Spring came, and with it the snowmelt, water running everywhere, and the River Tumble roared throughout the days and nights. Green grew the land, flowers bloomed, and the birds returned and sang their songs of territory and mating. Animals began stirring, Bear and deer and elk and mountain sheep and goat. Small animals, too, came forth from their winter’s lay-up, badger and hare and squirrel and marmot and otter and many others as well. Not all of these had slept in the winter, not fox nor Wolf nor wildcat nor others who roam the snow as well, but spring brought a renewal of energy unto them, and so they were active in preparing dens and in rearing young and in their unending quests for food.

And with the vernal equinox came the Elven celebration of the change of season. And just as did the festival of the autumn, so too did the festival of the spring extend over three nights, with singing and dancing and music and feasting, as well as sharing the joy of the labor. For the occasion Elven seamstresses fashioned for Faeril a silken gown of scarlet and gold, with just a touch of black. And Elven tailors made for Gwylly dark satin breeks of emerald green and a pale silken shirt of jade. Slippers there were of ruby for Faeril and shoes of black for Gwylly, with gold and silver buckles respectively, and Gwylly had a belt to match, while Faeril was accented with ribbons. Oh, how their eyes did sparkle in the light of the gathering hall, and after the feast the twain waltzed alone to the joy of the assembled Elvenkind.

After the Springday festival, the training continued, as Gwylly and Faeril, as Riatha and Aravan, taught and acquired skills and drilled—in snow and slush and water and mud, o’er wet rock and dry, among pines and crags and
open fields, on slopes and banks and on ground flat, on soil smooth and rough, and on open stretches of stone, for none could foretell what conditions would prevail when a given skill would be called upon. And so in all conditions, day or nigh, fair or foul, they practiced: stalking and hiding and other skills of stealth, learning to blend with forest and field and stone, learning how to catch a foe unaware, learning, too, the deadly skills of silent kill and more. Ambushes they lay, and overhead drops, and deadfalls and other traps. Still they climbed vertical rock, and climbed trees as well. They practiced walking a rope, Faeril teaching the others. All this and more did they do as spring moved toward summer.

But not all was training and practice, not all was learning and drill, for there was the spring tilling to do and the planting of crops and the tending of flocks and herds: sheep, cattle, horses, swine, ducks, geese, chickens, and the ponies of the Waerlinga. They sheared sheep for the wool and aided with foaling. They drove cattle to the high fields, and the sheep higher still.

It was while she and Gwylly were tending sheep that Faeril spoke again to Riatha about the prophecy, a topic often speculated upon in their free moments. But this time Faeril asked about Dara Rael and how the prophecy came to be.

As the Elfess and damman perched on a large rock in the high meadow, Riatha cast her thoughts back, recalling that distant day. “We sat on the banks of the River Tumble, not far from the cote, and Rael had a long crystal”— Riatha held thumb and forefinger some three inches apart—“clear it was, with six sides and faceted ends that came to a shallow point. I, too, had a crystal, somewhat smaller, but one I had prepared long ago.

“Rael had been trying to teach me scrying, though it seems I have little talent for it. Ai, now and again would I seem to catch an inchoate glimmer, a confused flash, but no true redes or sooths came to me.

“Nevertheless, we were playing at scrying when she seemed to slip into a trance, and then spoke the prophecy.

“Afterwards, I went unto thy ancestors—Petal and Pebble—to tell them of the rede…but thou hast read of that in thy journal, neh?”

Faeril nodded. “Yes, Petal wrote of it.” The damman fell silent and the two sat together and watched the sheep grazing the grassy ways among the rounded boulders and
smooth stretches of partially exposed white stone of the high mead, Gwylly in the distance trudging up a high slope intending to retrieve a lamb that had somehow become separated from the flock. After a long moment—“Someday. Riatha, would you teach me to scry?”

Riatha’s eyes flew wide. “What little I know was said to me a millennium agone, Faeril. As a teacher, thou couldst find one better than I.”

Faeril laughed and caught up Riatha’s hands in her own “Oh, Dara, I am merely curious as to how it is done.”

Riatha smiled back at the damman and nodded her assent.

* * *

During their stay in the high meadow cabin, Gwylly’s reading and writing plunged ahead apace, and Faeril began seriously tutoring him in Twyll, speaking as much as possible only in that tongue, keeping her phrases short and simple, translating only when necessary. With Gwylly’s natural aptitude for tongues, he took to Twyll as a duck takes to water—or rather as an
akkle chinta vi
.

The days of spring lengthened and summer drew nigh, and a week or two before the solstice their relief came, and the buccan and damman returned to the Elvenholt below The training with Aravan and Riatha resumed, though every third day or so, they disengaged from it to aid in the labor of the Elvenholt.

It was on such a day, on Year’s Long Day, that Riatha and Faeril broke off from hoeing rows of vegetables in the Elvenholt fields and strolled down to sit on the banks of the River Tumble, preparing to take a midday meal. And as they sat, the Elfess gave over a long crystal to the damman. Clear it was. Pellucid. Six-sided down its length, each end blunt-pointed with six facets. Some three quarters of an inch across from flat to opposite flat, and perhaps four inches from tip to tip.

Faeril drew in her breath, clearly taken by the transparent stone. She held it up in the sunlight and turned it and peered through the shirting panes. “Oh my, this is splendid.”

“’Tis a gift, wee one,” said Riatha after a moment of watching.

Faeril was astonished. “Oh, no, Riatha. This is too precious for one such as I.” She held out the crystal to Riatha.

“Hush thee, Faeril.” The Elfess refused to take back the
stone. “Thou dost place too low a value upon thyself. Too, Inarion would be puzzled by thy refusal.”

Faeril’s eyes flew wide. “Alor Inarion? This is a gift from him?”

Riatha smiled. “He was most happy to give it over.”

Faeril looked down at the crystal, shifting sunlight flashing as she slowly turned it. “I suppose it would be an insult to refuse a gift from the Lord of Arden Vale, neh?”

Riatha laughed her silver laugh. “Indeed, wee one. Indeed.”

They sat and took their meal of oatcakes and berries, drinking tea, Faeril’s eyes turning ever and again unto the crystal, while below the River Tumble
shsshhed
over falls and burbled over round rocks. Somewhere in the distance birds sang. At last the damman said, “Is this the same one you and Rael used when she spoke the rede?”

“Nay, Faeril. That one was Rael’s alone. But heed, these stones are not uncommon, though one of this size and clarity is seldom found.

“Most come with flaws. Some with threads of gold or silver or other metals. Some are tinged rose, while others are smoky or blue or green, ruddy or faintly gold.

“Rael told that those of color had particular uses, depending on the tint”—Riatha took up the stone and turned it aglitter in the sunlight—“but crystals clear, such as this, could be used for all.”

Again Riatha handed the stone to Faeril. The damman held the crystal and looked into its structure. “Riatha, is it…magic?”

The Elfess’s answer was long in coming, as if she pondered an enigma. “I know not what thou dost mean by such a word as ‘magic.’ But this I do know: it is
special
, for to some it provides the focus for them to unleash their own…power.”

Faeril looked up at Dara Riatha. “Does everyone have this…this ‘power’?”

Riatha sighed. “Mayhap, though for some it comes in greater measure than for others. At least that’s what Dara Rael believed. And perhaps I subscribe to that view as well, for never did I succeed in scrying. Perhaps, though, it was because I could not meet Rael’s criteria.”

“Her criteria?”

“Aye. “This is the way of it,’ she would say. ‘Empty thy
mind of all distraction, and concentrate first on cleansing the crystal; then thou canst charge it with light sunlight, moonlight, starlight, dawn light, twilight, candlelight, lantemlight, firelight, forgelight, torch-light, spectral light, gem light, and light from other sources—each has a purpose, each.’”

Faeril looked again at the crystal. “And just how does a person go about this ‘cleansing’?”

Riatha hearkened back, remembering. “It must be submitted to the five elements: buried in fertile earth; washed in clear water; breathed upon by a natural breeze; passed through a living flame; and aligned to the six cardinal directions of the aethyr—north, east, south, west, up, down.

“Then it must be kept wrapped in a black silk cloth and stored in an iron box to protect it from the fluctuations of the aethyr until time to charge it with the light and seek the vision.” Riatha took a small iron container, one inch by one inch by four and a half inches, from her pouch and opened it along a lengthwise seam, hinged opposite. The interior held a square of black silk, clearly marking this box as the container for the crystal that Faeril held. The Elfess gave over the receptacle to the damman. “Once cleansed by the one who will use it, the crystal is…attuned. It need not be cleansed again unless others have touched it or have otherwise greatly influenced it in some manner…or so said Rael long past.”

Faeril looked in at the iron box, the silk cloth, and the clear crystal. “All right, I understand how it might be cleansed. But how is it, mmm, used?”

Riatha again took the crystal and held it up into the sunlight “Charge it with the light by bathing it in the desired illumination. And in the same light hold it before thee. Gear thy mind of all else but the crystal and the light and look deep into the stone, and let thy consciousness fall within. Ask it what you will, and perhaps answers will come.

“I remember not all Rael said, yet this I do know:

“Rael also told me of many things which at times can be seen by viewing light through various jewels, yet these I do not remember in any great detail.

“But heed, one must be wary of such visions, for some are but imaginings—wishful and fearful both—while only a few are otherwise. Only at times unpredictable do true visions or redes or sooths or prophecies come through the crystals, and even these must be viewed with caution—for not always is revealed what immutably
must
be; instead thou mayest be shown that which merely
might
be.”

Ere Faeril could ask aught else, workers began streaming back to the fields. And so she wrapped the crystal in the black silk square and placed all in the iron box and closed it tight, the clasp clicking into place. She slipped the container into her own pouch, then she and Riatha took up their hoes and returned to the fields as well.

* * *

Summer came in full with the celebration of the solstice, and Aravan began teaching Faeril and Gwylly and Riatha the calls of birds—birds of the night as well as those of the day—for he had long studied the avians and had mastered this craft And slowly they gained skill in the many whistles and chirps and trills and coos and chirks, learning how to use them as signals to one another. They also gained some facility at imitating bat shrills, for such calls were within the range of hearing of Warrows as well as Elves. Too, Riatha taught each of them the patterns of silent hand signalling. And before the days of autumn came, they were able to carry on long conversations without speaking a word.