He let his eyes close and listened. No sound of breeze in the trees, no leaf rustle. Something moved on a tree trunk; he heard the scritch of claws on bark.
He had known Tam all his life. Cautious Tam, careful Tam, thoughtful Tam, perhaps not as wise as Granna Sofi, but then she was older, deeper in wisdom. Now he wondered if he knew Tam at all. And if he knew too little of Tam, what of his daughter Lin? If Tam could turn grasping, so late in life, would Lin draw back her hand from life-giving? Would she be a fist and not an open hand after all?
He wished his father had lived. He could not talk to his mother about this, not now. She had asked the ritual questions back before Lin sat in the square, and he had said yes, he was sure the Lady’s blessing lay on Lin and on their union. He had been sure.
He was not sure now. He knew only that he woke each night in the darkest hours, after foul dreams, with strange music humming in his head.
He squeezed his eyes shut and sank below the surface. Cool water lifted the strands of his hair, washing away the sweat and grime. Cool water supported him everywhere. If he were a fish, he could live in this cool cleanliness always, in this silence. He opened his eyes underwater and watched tiny silver bubbles from his nose rise past his eyes. Air seeking air, its own kind. He was not waterkind or airkind, neither fish nor bird.
His lungs ached. He lifted slightly, rolling his head back to catch a breath, and blinked the water out of his eyes. Even as he heard a startled hiss, he saw them.
Two squat shapes, half the height of the men but not boys, stood in the shallows staring at him. One muttered at the other, no tongue he knew. Of course not: They were Elders, rockfolk Elders. He knew that from the tales, every detail of which came back to him in that instant. Squat, broad, long-haired, bearded, teeth like stone pegs, hands and feet overlarge for their height. Clothed in leather and metal. Armed with metal weapons. And angry. In the tales, the rockfolk were always angry, usually with a human who invaded their fastnesses or stole something from them.
He was aware of a chill from more than the water, and aware too of his own nakedness. His clothes… one of the rockfolk had them now, stretching and poking at his shirt with a finger he knew would tear it… yes. He heard it rip. That one sniffed at the shirt, and wrinkled a broad nose; it gave a harsh sound that might’ve been a laugh. The other answered in its language.
Then came the sound of someone else brushing through the bushes, crackling leaves underfoot, nearer and nearer. The two rockfolk looked at each other and vanished. His shirt fell to the water’s surface, where the current took and folded it, then slid it downstream, slowly, rumpling over the shallows. Ker lurched forward out of the pool, back to the shallows, and made a grab for it. The wet mass resisted, and he yanked it up just as Tam broke through the bushes and stood on the bank scowling at him.
“Looking for another?” Tam asked.
“No, I was hot,” Ker said. “I was in the pool…”
“You’re not in the pool now. What have you got in that shirt?” Tam sounded almost as angry as the rockfolk had looked.
“Nothing,” Ker said. He held it up, wrung out the water, and spread it. The rent was a hand long, a three-cornered tear.
“Something made that—” Tam came into the ford, looking around as if he expected to find another of the odd rocks, as if one might have fallen through that hole in Ker’s shirt.
“It was the dwarf,” Ker said. “Two rockfolk were on the ford when I came up from the water. One of them had my shirt. Then I heard someone coming, and they were gone. My shirt fell into the water—”
Tam’s eyebrows rose. “Gone? Where?” he asked. “I don’t see any rockfolk.” He looked around, then back at Ker.
“I don’t know,” Ker said. “They just… weren’t there. Maybe it was magic.”
“Maybe there weren’t any rockfolk,” Tam said, his voice hard. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t see them.”
“I saw them,” Ker said. “I came up from the water and they were there, in the ford, with my shirt—one of them poked a hole in it—”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“No. I couldn’t think—”
“Mmm.” Tam didn’t say more, but Ker suspected he hadn’t believed a word of it. He didn’t know what to say, how to convince Tam that he had seen dwarves, and they had disappeared. “I think I need a soak too, lad,” Tam said. “Best you get back to the village, now, and sit your time.”
Ker nodded and fetched the rest of his clothes from the bush he’d laid them on. He put on the trews and draped his wet shirt on his head. He would have to put it on to enter the village, but it might be drier by the time he’d made it to the clearing. And he’d have to explain that rent to his mother. Would she believe him about the dwarves or would she be like Tam? Perhaps he could tell her simply that the shirt had gotten torn, and nothing more.
His mother turned the shirt in her hands, examining the ripped cloth, seeming to half-listen to his explanation. “I will fix it this evening,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.” Ker felt guilty. Though he was almost sure that not telling everything was not the same as telling something untrue, that almost pricked him like a thorn.
He thought so hard about that, sitting in the square that evening, that he scarcely noticed what anyone said or did. The Elders said that lies ripped the fabric of the community, destroyed the trust between people on which community rested. Between him and his mother stood the not-telling about the rockfolk. Between him and Lin’s family stood the lies Tam had told and Tam’s grasping at what was not his. Like father like daughter, like mother like son. Did he want to be married forever to the daughter of someone like Tam… the daughter of Tam himself?
He stumbled home in the dark finally, more miserable than he had been since his father died, and lay down sure he would not sleep. At least he would not dream if he did not sleep.
Despite himself, he dozed off after a time, and woke to voices whispering in the dark, just out of clear hearing. His heart pounded; he lay still, trying to breathe quietly so that he could hear what they said. Dry voices, evoking the rustle of winter leaves crisped by frost and blown by wind, or the little streaked birds of open grassland in midsummer. The blurred edges of speech sharpened slowly; he could hear more and more… but he could not understand. He shook his head, blinked against the dark, but the voices still spoke words he did not know. Then he heard his own name, clear within the bird-sounds of the voices. Once, and then again, “Ker.” And “Lin” and “Tam” as well.
Blood rushed in his ears; he lost the voices in its rhythmic noise. He shivered, suddenly drenched in sweat and cold. Voices that knew his name when he did not know their speech. That must be the Elders, but which race? The people of light were the Singer’s children; they had singing voices. The people of darkness, once also of the Singer’s tribe, had fallen away but retained their beauty, it was said. The rockfolk spoke loud and deep; the people of the law with almost mincing precision. None of these fit the sound he heard.
He sat up and peered through the dark at the hearthstone. It must be the pretty Tam had given him; that must be what caused this. He must get rid of it. He thought of throwing it in the creek, burying it in the woods.
“Fool!” came the voice, now in his own tongue. “Put it back.”
Back? He tried to remember just where on the path Tam had picked it up—just this side of the waystone, yes—and the voice crackled like a fire as it said “No! Fool! Restore, restore…”