Almost before he finished his sentence, the girl reappeared, pulling a seemingly reluctant woman along by one hand. The woman was protesting, and it was clear why. In her other hand she held a headless, gutted fish, and she had obviously been interrupted in the middle of preparing a meal. She was looking down at her daughter - for surely that was who the girl was - and laughing along with her protests. Then she looked up.
Darian felt his head start to spin. His jaw dropped; he grabbed Keisha’s arm, and stared. Older - yes - gray in the brown hair, a face weathered and lined with the cares of ten years, but -
“Mother!” he shouted, and ran toward her. As if the world had slowed, he watched her reactions. She stared, first without any recognition in her eyes, then with puzzlement, then the look he longed for dawned, and grew, and burst forth like the sun coming from behind a cloud.
“Darian!” she shrieked - the fish went one way, the little girl the other, and she ran for him with outstretched arms.
He caught her up in his embrace, a tiny part of him bewildered by how small she’d become, and held her as he’d hoped to for too many lonely years. She hugged him, laughing and crying at the same time; she put both her hands about his face, looked into his eyes, kissed him, looked again, kissed him again. His throat swelled, and tears of his own streamed from his eyes, though his mouth was stretched in a smile so large the corners of his mouth ached; the smell of fish suddenly became the most wonderful perfume in the whole world.
By this time, of course, they had gathered a substantial audience, and not only the little girl was dancing around them, but a second, slightly younger one, and a littler boy, all chanting his name and tugging on their mother’s deerskin shirt.
As for Darian - he didn’t care. His mother was in his arms, babbling endearments - he held her tightly, babbling nonsense of his own. No matter what happened in the next moment, or day, or week - he savored where he was, right now, and no one could ever take it from him.
Darian looked dazed as well as blissfully happy, and Keisha held one of his hands as he and his mother slowly caught up on the last ten years. They all sat on benches or flat grass-stuffed leather cushions on the ground in front of the log house. She had insisted that he go first, plying him with honey-sweetened berry juice whenever his voice grew hoarse.
“So strange,” she marveled at last, shaking her head as a cool breeze toyed with strands of her hair that had escaped from her single braid. “Of all the things I had imagined you would become, a mage was not one. And a Hawkbrother! Your father will be speechless.”
“Where is Father?” Darian asked eagerly.
His mother laughed. “Where would you think? Out on the river, trapping fish this time, rather than four-leggers. You wouldn’t expect the loss of a mere foot to slow him down, now would you? Kelsie’s twin Kavin is with him.” She ruffled the hair of the oldest girl, who watched her brother Darian with undisguised adoration. The younger two, solemn six-year-old Ranie, and two-year-old Tel, snuggled against their mother’s legs. “I suspect that these littles came as a great surprise to you - ”
“I’d be lying if I said they didn’t, but they’re a wonderful surprise,” he replied, smiling down at the little girl Kelsie, then at her sister and brother. “I never thought of myself as a big brother before. But tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
Darian’s mother - Daralie Firkin, Keisha reminded herself, Her name is Daralie, Dar for short - sighed, caressed the hair of the smaller girl, and began. “We had just finished setting up camp, when - something happened. I don’t remember what being caught in the magic felt like, and I suspect that’s just as well. The next thing I knew, we were halfway up that mountain there - ” she nodded at the mountain to the north of the village. Even at this distance, there was a spot of terrain that was visibly different - no doubt the sphere of Valdemaran land that had switched places with the piece of terrain originally there. “Kullen was screaming, and no wonder, since his foot had been cut off clean. The fire had come with us, and - I don’t know where he got the presence of mind to do this - and he shoved the stump into the coals. That seared the severed veins off; if he hadn’t, I think he would have bled to death.”
Keisha didn’t need to be an Empath to know that those simple words concealed fear and horror that Dar still felt, even now. Keisha could not imagine being in her shoes at that moment - utterly alone, thrown onto the side of an unknown mountain by an unknown power, her husband wounded, perhaps mortally -
She shuddered, then smiled wanly, and shook off the emotions her recollection called up.
“Thanks be to the gods, all our camping gear came with us as well - well, except for the corner of the tent that had gone along with his foot; I bound up the stump and dosed him with poppy. We had food enough for a while, so I nursed him while I studied where we were.” Daralie smiled thinly. “The most I could say was that I didn’t know. I put out trap-lines for small animals, and caught things that are like short-eared rabbits that live among the rocks, and built up our campsite into a small stone hut walled over with snow blocks - I had no idea how long we would be there, and I wanted to be ready for the worst blizzards. As it happens, we weren’t there for very long, and the blizzards aren’t bad as far down on the mountain as we were.” More of that years-old fear drained from her, and she smiled. “You might not believe it, but down here in the valleys the winter isn’t harsh at all; it seldom snows. And when snow does come, it doesn’t linger.”
“I have trouble believing that, indeed, given how chilly it is at the moment,” Darian replied, “But if you say it is so, I will try to believe anything you tell me.”
That brought a smile to his mother’s face, and she continued. “I don’t know what we would have done if we had been left on our own, but some of the hunters from Raven found us. They brought us here, and although we didn’t know it, we were intended to become someone’s slaves - but one of the Changed creatures attacked the camp first. By then, thanks to the Wisewoman, Kullen was up and about, and when the hunters couldn’t get near enough to the creature to kill it, we showed them how to build a pit-trap to take it. Would you believe it? They didn’t know anything but the simplest of snares!” She shook her head at the idea. “Well, that ended any talk of making us slaves, or so I’m told. We helped them trap any number of wretched Change-Creatures, clearing out the valley, and they adopted us into the tribe and made us their Chief Hunters. There isn’t much more to tell,” she concluded. “We taught them how to trap, and they taught us their ways. When we realized that we were right off the map, we gave up the notion of getting home. I knew that the people of Errold’s Grove would see you were taken care of.”
Keisha was glad that Darian had not mentioned the way he’d been treated by the Errold’s Grove villagers now, and she suspected he felt the same. Why cause Daralie any more distress? What was in the past could not be changed, and if things had not happened the way they had, he might not be talking to her now.
“I never gave up hoping that one day we’d get some word back to you, though,” she finished, looking up into his face with eyes that were the aged mirror-image of his. “That was why I kept sending the vests out. There was always that possibility that one day, someone in Valdemar would see one, would recognize the pattern, and ask about where it came from.”