Wayfarer had been unsettled by the “made” structures of a’Ghràihlôn’na—after her initial awe had passed. Here, she found comfort within a living tree like those of her own people, even as a temporary home. The wool curtain shifted, maybe from movement inside the tree, and a muffled voice called out.
“Wayfarer?”
“Yes,” she called back.
Vreuvillä emerged from the tree dwelling, a circlet of braided raw shéot’a strips binding back her silver-streaked hair. Wayfarer had taken to wearing the same.
She had also cast aside old clothes for ones like the elder Foirfeahkan. She now wore pants and a long-sleeved tunic, as well as high soft boots, and a thong-belted jerkin, both made of darkened hide. There was also a pleated, thick wool skirt of dark forest green split down the front that could be bound around her waist as needed. She rarely wore that, as she did not like how it got in her way.
“Supper is ready,” Vreuvillä said, striding closer as some of the pack shifted and circled in around her.
“Is it so late?” Wayfarer asked, sitting upright. “I should have helped.” They normally ate well past dusk and into the night, and she always helped with everything.
“I would have called if help was needed,” Vreuvillä said bluntly before Wayfarer could apologize.
Such brusque responses—sometimes before a question was even asked—had become almost normal. At first, Wayfarer had found the Foirfeahkan woman rather sharp. But this was just her way, and she had opened a new world before Wayfarer’s eyes.
That new world had not always been comfortable and was often confusing.
Vreuvillä explained that the Foirfeahkan were—had been—a spiritual sect reaching back before what humans called the Forgotten History. And even farther and farther. Vreuvillä did not know how far back they began.
From what Wayfarer understood, the priestess was the last of them.
Their ideology was animistic, another strange word with which Wayfarer had trouble. They believed in the spiritual—ethereal—of this world rather than a theistic focus common to the outside world. They believed—somewhat like the an’Cróan but more—that Spirit itself was of this world forever and not from a separate realm. More confusing at first, the life of Existence had a heart, a center, a “nexus,” which was another word that Wayfarer had never heard in any language.
Chârmun—“Sanctuary”—was the center of all.
It was called so because its presence was why the Lhoin’na forest was the last place where the Ancient Enemy’s darkest forces could not enter during or since the Great War.
The tree grew in all its mystery and beauty in what others called “First Glade.” The true place of that name to the Foirfeahkan was somewhere else nearby. Wayfarer had gone to look upon Chârmun many times, though she had often needed Shade to help find her way through the forest. At first, she had been frightened, and even Shade had been reluctant.
In a hidden, remote place in her own people’s forest stood another sacred tree of a similar name—Roise Chârmune, the “Seed of Sanctuary.” Its clearing was the last resting place for the ashes of the first an’Cróan ancestors. Only the most honored dead of their people were allowed to have their ashes laid in that place. And most others only visited there once in their lives for a vision by which they took their final name.
Though Vreuvillä revered Chârmun, as the last Foirfeahkan she did not truly worship it. She saw it as sacred in being integral to everything, as were the majay-hì and other Fay-born. Because of this, she could share memories with the majay-hì ... as could Wayfarer now. “How” was still a puzzle, and, though it was never said, Wayfarer often wondered about Vreuvillä’s physical appearance.
The priestess looked in some ways like an an’Cróan or a Lhoin’na and yet neither. This was mostly because of her dark hair—like Wayfarer’s—but there was something more.
Was Vreuvillä also of mixed blood?
Was it the same with all past Foirfeahkan?
Vreuvillä never spoke of this, even when asked, though from other things, Wayfarer knew there could be no form of heritage for this calling. All who had become Foirfeahkan did not inherit it; they came to it, as she had now done. In that, her taken name before the ancestors had better meaning.
Sheli’câlhad, “To a Lost Way.”
And even that was not the final naming, according to her new teacher. Vreuvillä once mentioned that all Foirfeahkan took a name by their new calling. It was a name of their own choice. Even so, Wayfarer wanted no name but the one she now had, created for her by Magiere, Léshil, and Chap.
At first, she had not known what to expect in coming here, but after initial explanations, Vreuvillä did not spend much time with instruction. Rather, she encouraged Wayfarer to simply exist and feel what was real for herself.
“Commune among the majay-hì,” she said, “and with First Glade ... the true one ... when the need calls you. These will teach you far more—more quickly—than can I. And after that, there is even more.”
At first, and only at night, when even the trees slept, Vreuvillä had taken her to the true First Glade. It was a clearing with a broad circle of slender aspens at the far side. Those trees looked no different from others of their kind, but perhaps they were too pristine for a wild place. Within their circle, the grass was low and clean. And when Vreuvillä breached that circle to stand at its center surrounded by the aspens, her hair suddenly glistened as if she had stepped into a spring dawn.
Silver streaks in her locks turned almost white. Her amber eyes sparked as she raised her face upward. The majay-hì paced softly around the tree ring.
On that first visit and others later, Shade always remained at Wayfarer’s side.
The priestess spread her arms low to the sides with palms forward and whispered in a tongue difficult to follow. It sounded like an’Cróan or Lhoin’na but perhaps older. That Vreuvillä heard or felt something answer her was clear, for it was the only time all traces of harshness vanished from her face.
But Wayfarer had neither seen nor heard anything, and Vreuvillä never explained.
Wayfarer had gone to this First Glade several times with only Shade. Though she tried to copy what Vreuvillä had done in clearing all thoughts from her mind, nothing happened. She felt nothing and heard nothing each time; ask as she did, Vreuvillä only answered, “You will receive an answer when they think you are ready.”
And when Wayfarer asked, “When who thinks I am ready?”
“That is part of the answer you will receive.”
There were too many nonanswers like this.
Days and nights passed much the same, except for “listening” to majay-hì memories in Shade’s company. In that, she was almost at peace in forgetting things she had yet to understand. Freedom was hers for the first time among the pack, until Vreuvillä mentioned something else.
Wayfarer pressed about why the Foirfeahkan lived isolated from the world, and the priestess hesitantly whispered ...
“Jâdh’airt.”
Wayfarer frowned. Much as that sounded like a word of her people, it made no sense. Her only guess was something like “an overwhelming desire.”
Vreuvillä’s jaw clenched, and walking away, she uttered in a low voice, “The true wish.”
Again, that was not enough. Other than being just a youthful nothing, it did not seem such a horrible thing. Wayfarer headed after the priestess.
“How is that different from just ... a wish for something wanted?”
Vreuvillä slowed but did not look back. “Nothing can be created or destroyed in such a way. Only changed ... exchanged.”
Striding on, she had offered nothing more.
Tonight, Wayfarer pressed all such things from her mind. She was glad for the company of Vreuvillä and the pack, and in this moment, she was determined to think only of following the priestess back to the dwelling—and eating dinner together.