“You mean they don’t?” Firesong asked innocently.
“Oh, no, no, no. Spells aren’t needed to make magic, and lifebonds aren’t needed to make love. Here - ” Silverfox put his drink down, and stood up in a single fluid, gliding motion, to lean over Firesong’s chair. His long hair made a curtain that shut out the rest of the world. “Allow me to demonstrate. . . .”
Darian watched the shadows dance among the lamp-lit leaves overhead, supremely relaxed and content with his lot. The talk had settled to a murmur over to one side, with the rest of the small gathering of friends simply enjoying an all-too-infrequent moment of doing absolutely nothing.
“This isn’t really a proper party,” Wintersky complained, for after the drowsy laziness that inevitably followed a round of excellent food and drink set in, bodies sprawled over cushions as if in the aftermath of a massacre, and no one was inclined to do much more than listen to crickets sing. It had been a massacre, of sorts. The refreshments and supper brought by eager hertasi had been slaughtered down to the last drop and crust. Darian was wondering if he would make it to his bed after all, or just give up and fall asleep where he was, when Wintersky’s complaint broke the silence.
The bodies stirred and sat up, but no one replied to Wintersky, who continued in a firmer tone of voice. “No, it’s just nothing like a real party, and if anyone among us deserves a big celebration, it’s you, Dar’ian,” Wintersky stated authoritatively. “We ought to have one, that’s what we should do!”
“What, on top of everything else we’re planning?” Darian replied, appalled at the very idea. “Aren’t you all going to make me enough of an entertainment as it is? And think of the poor hertasil They’re already working their tails to stubs just to get ready for the Heralds, and now you want to add another party to their burden?”
“He’s right, Wintersky,” Sunleaf responded from the far corner of the clearing. Sunleaf, a contemporary of Snowfire, had been eager and willing to assist Darian in his studies when none of the greater mages were available, and the two had become good friends. “But Dar’ian, Wintersky is right, too,” he continued, nodding his shaggy head. “Keisha isn’t here, for one thing, and it doesn’t seem fair to me that we leave her out. Why don’t we just do this all over again as soon as she gets back? We’ll just call this a practice for the real party - or better yet, just a little gathering of friends. Say we just made a spur-of-the-moment picnic to congratulate you, and it’s not a party at all. Because really, that’s all it was.”
Darian didn’t have to think about it. He knew that Keisha would be hurt if she thought she’d been left out of the celebration. He did not want to hurt her feelings, nor did he want to make her think that he had forgotten all about her in the rush of euphoria after passing the Trial. “I’m glad you thought of that,” he replied gratefully. “So long as we don’t overburden our hertasi friends, that’s what we ought to do.”
Sunleaf laughed. “Oh, trust me, it’s in my own best interest,” he answered, and from across the clearing, Darian saw him wink. “I know what she’d do to me if she found out we had a party without her!”
“Do to you? Have pity, I have to sleep with her - what do you think she’d do to me? I’d be afraid to close my eyes!” Since the attendees at this little celebration were all males, and mostly bachelors, the entire gathering laughed at both of them, and Darian was momentarily ashamed to speak so of Keisha. On the other hand, Snowfire has said the same thing about Nightwind, to her face, and she just pretends to threaten him. “We should keep it very casual, but give Keisha and the other girls a chance to dress up.” There; that should make up for his lapse.
One of the hertasi that had adopted Darian and Keisha - a young striped male called Meeren - was picking up discarded and empty cups. At this sally, he hissed a laugh of his own. “Very well, then, do not worry about the preparations,” the leather-capped hertasi put in. “It is of manageable difficulty. In fact, with this much notice, we can have a few delicacies set aside for you. I will arrange for the official party to take place when Keisha returns.”
Darian relaxed; Meeren was one of Ayshen’s most valued assistants, a specialist in logistics. Whatever Meeren organized was certain to be a success.
Now the young hertasi turned to sweep the clearing with his gaze, his tail counterbalancing his movement as he turned. “And what Dar’ian has said makes me think. Do you young Tayledras think to be inviting some females, so that Keisha will not be the only one of her gender here? It will not only be Keisha who is disappointed to learn that there was a gathering to which no one thought to bring a friend.”
“That’s an even better idea - how did this end up as an all-male party, anyway?” asked Wintersky, looking around himself in astonishment. One of the shaych scouts replied with a laugh, “We were just lucky?”
“Don’t ask me - I was the last one to be invited,” Darian countered, tossing a cushion at the scout. “It wasn’t any idea of mine!”
Keisha was unusually glad to see the entrance of the Vale ahead of her. The twin pillars with the shimmer of the Veil between them beckoned her with all the warmth and welcome of an old friend. She was equally glad to ride through the cool shadows under moss-covered trunks and dismount at her very own door again. She removed the panniers resting across the back of her dyheli, but before she could touch the tack, a hertasi had come and taken it, and the dyheli trotted off to rejoin his herd.
How do they do that? Appear out of nowhere and just take over things? She stared at the retreating hertasi tail. I am never going to get used to it. It’s like they are always around, and always watching, no matter what we do - and then they know what we need next. She picked up the empty panniers, one in each hand, and with her foot nudged open the green-painted door.
It wasn’t that she was tired - that was far from the case; she had enjoyed the ride back enormously. Spring was her favorite season, and this spring was turning out to be particularly lovely. So far it had rained just enough, and only at night, so that blue skies graced the daylight hours. Everything was growing or in bloom. There were already spring vegetables coming in to the market, weeks before the usual time. It hadn’t been too cold or too hot. In fact, if the entire region had been seated beneath a Veil, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.
No, the problem was not that Keisha was tired - unless it was that she was tired of Errold’s Grove. When she returned to her childhood home, she increasingly felt as if she was trying to squeeze into clothing that she had long since outgrown. Every time she made her weekly visit it was the same thing, whereas the Vale was constantly changing. The only change in the village was the occasional new pile of rocks, a fresh border around a flower bed, or a new shirt worn out-of-season so that everybody noticed. Other than that, it was the same little complaints, the same village gossip -