The woman who stood under the front portico was tall, at least half a head taller than I. The black hair framed a thin face, one dominated by deep blue eyes. The green-tinged blue tunic and trousers she wore neither added to nor subtracted from the clean lines of her face.
'Greetings,' I offered.
'I'm Foerga. You must be Tyndel' Her lips curled into a warm smile, and her eyes sparkled.
I had to smile in return. 'I'm Tyndel. Please come in.'
When I closed the door, my mother's voice carried from the balcony. 'Do bring Foerga out, Tyndel.'
What else was I going to do? I wanted to roll my eyes.
Foerga's smile turned into a grin, and she murmured in a low and husky voice, 'All mothers are the same.'
I couldn't help grinning back at her, and I almost forgot how much taller she was as we walked out to the balcony.
'I'm so glad you could come.' Mother was standing by the table. Steam curled from the spout of the teapot.
After seating the black-haired woman in the chair beside my mother, I poured three cups. 'Would you like honey?'
'No, thank you.' Her voice remained husky without being rough.
'Mother?'
You know my habits well enough, Tyndel. One dollop.'
I gave her one and took two myself before sitting down and glancing toward the harbor. It was still early enough that the overhang protected us from the descending sun, and early enough that my father was doubtless still wrestling with some aspect of exchanges or futures or shipping schedules.
You have a lovely view from here,' Foerga said.
'It is lovely, but Tyndel's father set it up more to view the harbor for commercial purposes. Not aesthetic ones.' Mother laughed. 'Tynd's never been one for aesthetics.'
'Then everyone must be pleased.' Foerga's summary was both matter-of-fact and delivered warmly.
I laughed. 'You have a way with words that I envy.'
'Foerga is one of the most talented artisans with crystal,' Mother said. 'Elexton told me that last week.' If Mother said so, Foerga was talented, but I was more taken with the smile and the warmth in those blue eyes.
'I need to see to the dinner.' With a knowing smile, Mother rose.
'As if she didn't have it planned to the last instant,' I said with a laugh after my mother vanished from the balcony.
The dark-haired artisan laughed gently. 'What else would you have her say? "I'm going to leave you two alone in order to see if you can discover each other"?'
Her words were true enough, but there was no edge to them, no brittleness, no sense of revealed truth or self-importance. At that moment, I could sense that Foerga possessed an absolute understanding and acceptance of what was and would be. She understood Dzin better than I.
'Have you studied Dzin?' I asked.
'No. I read a little from my father's library, but' - a faint smile crossed her lips - 'it seemed ...' She shook her head.
'Obvious?' I suggested.
A slight frown greeted my question. 'Not obvious. Anything that is obvious has more behind it.' For the first time, she looked a little flustered, a little less composed.
I waited.
'The simplest crystal design is often the most difficult,' she finally said. 'You can feel how good it is, but executing it or explaining it sometimes feels impossible.' She paused, those deep and piercing eyes fixed on me. 'I think Dzin is like that.'
I realized for the first time, but not for the last, that Foerga was like that - a simple goodness so direct that it was art and not artifice, a truth so obvious it could not be described.
For the longest time, I just looked into her eyes, far more blue than the Summer Sea, far deeper than any blue presented by a Dzin master.
10
You may know your thoughts, but you are not your thoughts.
The morning brume was thick, silver-white, and my breath added to it as the shears snick-snicked their way along the hedge in the postdawn glow. Each pruned piece went into the cart, none over a few centimeters, to be carried to the composter when I was done.
The scent of damp grass surrounded me, pervaded even the cold silver brume as my hands and fingers wielded the oiled shears. Ensuring the proper proportions of the hedge, that was easy, and rewarding, to apply myself to the task and become one with it. But why had I not seen how the boxwood had grown overlarge? Yes, the lines had been precise, but too near the green edges of the walk. Why had I not seen the changes? Had I grown too complacent in Hybra? Too tolerant of the small deviations from the ideals of Dzin?
I walked back to the front gate and studied the walk-side edge of the hedge. Another centimeter or two would be better. I lifted the polished wood and steel of the shears, shears older than I but still keen and functional. When I finished, I did smile.
Then, after emptying the cart into the hopper and racking it on the garden shed wall, I turned the crank, regularly, slowly, and the finely meshed gears drove the grinder. A thin stream of shredded leaves and wood poured into the compost bin, from which I took the material that I used to build up the garden and mulch the trees, except that it came from the bottom, slanted so that it fed into the chute with a lifting door on the outside of the shed.
Dynae's selection by Overmaster Juab - that nagged at me, although I knew I was certainly not one who should question it. How could a lowly schoolmaster in Hybra question an Overmaster of Dzin? Yet the thought that criteria other than intelligence and receptiveness to Dzin troubled me, and I could not deny that unease.
Then, Sergol, a truffler's son, had questioned me, and not in the proper manner.
How had I failed? Had I not kept to the true ideals of Dzin in some subtle fashion?
I kept cranking the composter until the hopper was empty. Then I swung the grinder back into its rack and replaced the bin cover.
I would have to talk to Wolyd about his son, if only to discover who was planting such questions. Questioning to seek the truth was one matter. Questioning merely to cause unrest was another, and I had the feeling that Sergol's questions were not raised to seek the truth or the way of Dzin. I doubted Sergol himself had even raised them. But Dzin masters, even in small towns, were not supposed to let such questions and doubts arise.
I wiped down and oiled the shears, then racked them, closed the garden shed, and walked back through the fog and mist to the rear door of the house.
Foerga was up, heating the water and fixing breakfast. Her low song as she moved around the kitchen brought a smile to my lips, and I paused for several moments in the rear hall, silently listening, drawing in the warmth of song and of the artisan who was my soul mate.
After laying out the exercise mat on the enclosed rear deck, I stripped to my shorts, then sat on the mat and tried to compose my thoughts. The key was to let the trivia of the world pass me by, concentrating on the now, on the sense of body and self and selflessness. The world did indeed recede, and physically I was refreshed, especially after my shower.
The questions pushed their way back into my thoughts by the time I sat at the table.
'You did not sleep well. I had hoped you would.' Foerga smiled softly as she poured the tea.
'One cannot always sleep the sleep of the untroubled.' I offered her a smile.
'You are worried.'
'I am, but your words warm me.' I took a slow sip of tea, then a bite of the apple biscuit, savoring the taste of each crumb. 'They are but small matters - Dynae, Sergol and his questions.' And we have each other. I smiled as I looked into her deep blue eyes.
'The tongue of the adder, visible only briefly, is a small matter.' Foerga offered the slightest frown, and that expression worried me, for my artist soul mate saw more without words than I did with them.