“So this is why he told us not more of this person Tam? Because in your folk the young must respect the old?”
Ker’s mother nodded. “The young are hasty; the young do not understand everything. So they could make trouble, not understanding, and they must not spread tales of wrongdoing, especially not to strangers. The Lady commands peace.”
“But you?”
“I am a widow, a mother, and of the same age as Tam Gerisson. I can judge the rightness of my own words, and I can bear the load of shame or sorrow if I misspeak.”
“And you say—” the dwarf prompted.
“I say that Tam planted falsely from the beginning. I say he tricked us, lured my son into plighting troth with his daughter, gave false gifts, lied and plotted to fashion an excuse to send me away.”
Ker felt his jaw drop in shock. He had never imagined his mother saying anything like this. “No!” he said. His mother ignored him and went on.
“Ker does not know this, but years ago I turned aside Tam’s offer of marriage. He was a lightfaring man, I thought, and I married Ker’s father instead, for he had been steady in his affection since we were children. Tam must have held anger against me, though he pretended friendship…”
In the brighter light of the fire her face looked intent, determined.
“Was he selfish, this Tam?” the dwarf asked. “Hungry for power among your people?”
“Not in seeming. We do not esteem selfish men,” his mother said.
Ker stirred. The dwarf whipped around as if he had seen that slight movement.
“What is it?”
“Granna Sofi said Tam became an Elder younger than others. He had the knowledge from his travels…” Ker said.
“So he did,” Ker’s mother said. “I had forgotten. His oldest children were scarce hip-high. It seemed reasonable, though, because he did know so much. He had often advised the Elders.”
“And your husband?”
“He tended the sheep of our people,” she said. “He died out on the hills in a storm. He fell and hit his head on a rock.”
“Tam had just become an Elder,” Ker said. If his mother was telling all about Tam, he had no reason not to tell what he remembered. “He came to tell us the news, and he offered friendship. He said I would be like a son to him, and he a father to me.”
“He said he would not hold against me that earlier refusal,” Ker’s mother said. “He said he would care for me as for a sister. After that, he taught Ker as his own son in the lore of field and woods.”
“Not sheep?” the dwarf asked.
“He was not good with animals,” Ker’s mother said. “He did not like them, nor they him. Barin Torisson took over the village sheep herd, and Ker learned the arts of planting and harvest. I gave his father’s shepherd’s crook to Barin for an extra share of wool.”
“And for this Tam gave what?”
“We shared the village harvest. Tam never failed to bring our full measure of grain.” Ker saw the sparkle of tears in his mother’s eyes, and her head dropped suddenly. “He must have held that anger close, so long… I was afraid, at first, but then all seemed well, until Ker and Tam’s daughter saw each other.”
“Saw—?”
“As man and woman, not child and child, sister and brother,” his mother explained. Ker had not thought about Lin for hours in the shock of leaving. Now he let his mind wander back to those first hours in which he had seen her truly, not as one of the gaggle of village girls, not as Tam’s daughter, but as herself. An individual. A person someone might desire and marry and live with. Suddenly she had seemed wreathed in light, set apart from the others. And on that same day she had looked at him, recognized him as himself. While he still stood, staring, amazed at what was happening, she had spoken his name, Ker, and it had reverberated through his whole body.
Everyone knew marriage meant joining a family, a lineage, an inheritance of body and mind and soul. But beyond that was the delight of a pairing that worked—fit neatly in all respects as in body. Mere liking was never enough—for as the Elders said, in the spring of youth all maids liked all men and all men liked all maids—but desired in addition to the other criteria.
“The flower of love is the children thereof, but the fruit is peace, harmony, contentment in the whole village,” his mother said to the dwarf, as she had told him often. A good marriage enriched everyone; a bad marriage impoverished everyone with the tensions it brought.
“Dwarflove is not like that.” The dwarf grinned suddenly, showing those square yellowish pegs. “It is that we find grain match, and of gems those most desired. Dwarflove is blending of the rock, as when fire mountains melt rock into liquid fire.”
Ker could not imagine that. The blending he understood was root into soil, or water into root: the growth of green things, flower and fruit.
“But no matter,” the dwarf said. It was as if he had never grinned. “It is not the time to speak of love, but of judgment and justice. It is our saying that you go to this man, this Tam Gerisson, and bring back those things of which we spoke, with or without his consent. Bring him also if you can.”
Ker felt a cold gripe in his belly. “I can’t,” he said. “We were banished. If I return, they will kill me. What good will that do?”
“If you do not return and fulfill this task,” the dwarf said. “We will kill you.” He fingered the ax handle in his belt.
“It is your rock,” Ker said. “Why can you not get it for yourself now that you know where it is?”
The dwarf glowered, then shook his head. “You humans! You know nothing of the matter, and yet you will give orders. The Singers say we are hasty, and men say we are greedy, but in all the world none are so hasty and greedy as humans.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Be quiet.” The dwarf’s expression stopped the words in Ker’s throat. He sat as still as he could, stone-still, and waited. Finally the dwarf heaved a gusty sigh, and shook his head. “It is not good for the Elders to mingle with humankind, so our wisest say. For where there is no mingling of blood in families, there comes mingling of blood in battle, and we would not begin a war without cause. For this reason, we ask humans to deal with humans, when needs must.”
“But why? What is the need? And why didn’t those other dwarves just come into the village and talk to Tam? Why did they vanish when he came near?”
“Were you not listening? Have you stones in your ears? You had seen them already: one human already, and I misdoubt they knew you were there until you rose from the water. We are not suited to seeing in water, we rockfolk. So one had seen, but there was no need for two to see. And you had the scent of dragonspawn on you—”
“Dragonspawn… you said that before, but you said rocks—”
The dwarf muttered what must have been a curse from the tone. “The scent of what we seek, I mean. Have you no words that mean different things—is there not a food you call dragoncake?
“Yes…” Ker remembered the village dragoncake, centerpiece of Midwinter Feast. “But—I was in the water. Water washes off scent—”
“Not this scent, not to our noses. Touch it but once, and you bear that scent to the end of your days. Faint, yes, if it is but once, and yet it marks the one who touches it forever.”
Ker shuddered. The dwarf nodded.
“You see, now, why this matters. It is worse than that, for the one who handles such carelessly for long, and someone who desires many… they are ill luck for those who do not know how to master them.”
“I thought at first,” Ker said, “that it was some kind of egg. That it might hatch—” Even now he wouldn’t mention Tam’s comment about dwarfwives laying eggs.
“Men!” The dwarf spat into the fire and a green flame shot up. “Can you do nothing but think of that which should not be spoken and bellow it aloud? Be quiet, now.”