The drummer began first; Tre'valen marked the time with one foot, the fringe shivering with each beat. When the instruments came in, Tre'valen leapt into action.
Elspeth soon saw why it was called the "Hawk Dance." Tre'valen was aloft more often than he was on the ground; whirling, flying, leaping.
He never paused, never rested; no sooner did his foot touch the ground than he was in the air again. His arms curved like wings cupping the air. Elspeth's heart kept time with the beat, her eyes unable to leave him. He didn't seem much like a human at the moment-more like a creature akin to the tervardi or the firebirds. But then, perhaps that was the essence of being a shaman.
The dance came to an end on a triple beat and one of the highest leaps of the dance that left Tre'valen standing still as stone, exactly in the same place where he had begun the dance. Elspeth had no idea how he had known the music was about to end; she had heard nothing to signal the end of the piece. It left her staring, dumb with astonishment and delight.
Tre'valen sat down on a root amid the shouts and applause of the others. Darkwind took the shaman's place in the center of the circle; composed himself, and nodded to the musicians.
This time the music began slowly, with a glissando on the odd hammered instrument, followed by another on the harp, a softer echo of the first. Then Darkwind began to dance.
The Tayledras and Shin'a'in music were related; that much was obvious from a root similarity of melody, but dancing and music had changed from the time the two races were one. Either the Shin'a'in had gotten wilder, or the Tayledras had become more lyrical, or both.
Darkwind didn't leap, he floated; he didn't whirl, he flowed. He moved as if he had no bones, flew like his own bird, glided and spun and hovered. There was nothing feminine in the dance, for all of that; it was completely, supremely masculine. Besides his supple grace, what Elspeth noticed most of all were his hands-they had to be the most graceful pair of hands she had ever seen.
Darkwind finished the dance like a bird alighting for the night; coming to rest with a final run from the harp. There was a faint sheen of sweat over his body and face, shining in the moonlight. As he held his final pose, he was so completely still that he could have been a silver statue of a forest spirit, looking up in wonder at the stars.
That was the image that Elspeth took with her, as she slipped out of the clearing and found one of the hertasi. She asked the little creature to show her the quarters Darkwind had promised were waiting for her here.
The little lizard grinned at her, and led her down so many twisting, dark paths that she was soon lost. Not that it mattered at the moment.
Darkwind had also pledged that he would send someone to lead her about until she knew her own way.
She recognized the area, once they got near it; they were very close to the entrance to the Vale, the farthest they could be from the Heartstone and still be inside the Vale shields. The hertasi showed her a staircase winding up the side of a tree. For a moment she was afraid that she would have to climb up several stories. and she wasn't sure she had the head for it.
But the hertasi scrambled up ahead of her, and her waiting quarters proved to be a mere single story above the floor of the Vale, a set of two rooms built just off the stairs, lighted and waiting for her.
She fell into the bed as soon as the hertasi left her-but for a surprisingly long time she lay looking at the moon, as sleep deserted her.
She felt a little less like a stranger, but no less lonely. Skif had Nyara-or at least, he had the dream of Nyara, wherever he was now. She still had no one.
Only her duty, her omnipresent duty. To learn everything she could about magic; learn it quickly, and bring it home to Valdemar.
That was cold comfort-and no company-on a silvered, moonfilled night...
*Chapter Three - Darkwind and Vree
Darkwind accepted the applause of his fellow scouts along with a damp cloth and a healthy gulp of cold water. It had been a long time since he had performed the Wind Dance in full, although dance was a part of his daily workout. He enjoyed it, and enjoyed the applause almost as much.
It was good to know his skill could still conjure approval from his brethren.
The Outlander, Elspeth, had been watching the dancers when Tre'valen began his display. He knew she had enjoyed the Hawk Dance; from the look on her face, she had probably never seen anything quite like it before. He thought she'd enjoyed his dancing as well-and he meant to talk to her afterward. He was disappointed, after he'd caught his breath, to find she had gone.
He settled for a moment to let his muscles recover; he felt them quivering with fatigue as he sat down. He had pushed himself in this Wind Dance, to far closer to his limits than he usually tried to reach. The steps which appeared deceptively easy, required perfect balance and control a required fully as much effort to sustain as Tre'valen's more energetic Hawk Dance.
He listened to some of the others discussing dances and dancers past nodding when someone said something he particularly agreed with. No one else wanted to follow his performance, and some of the players took that as a signal to put their instruments away and rest their weary fingers.
As Darkwind settled his back against the tree and slowly sipped his water, he considered the Outlanders-Elspeth in particular. They were less of an enigma than he had feared they would be, although he still wished he knew a great deal more about their culture.
Elspeth was more of a problem than her friend Skif, simply because of her position as his student. She was sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating, often both.
She compounded his own problems as he resumed his position as an Adept. As his father had pointed out, he had a great deal to re-learn; how much, Darkwind was only now figuring out. What Starblade didn't know was that his son was already giving Elspeth lessons, even while he was retraining his own powers.
Elspeth posed a peculiar hazard, that of half-knowledge. She had full training in the Gifts of mind-magic, though no true training in her magepowersbut some of the Mind-Magic disciplines were similar enough to give her a grasp on magery, but without controls. Her sword had at one time provided some guidance and tutelage, but Elspeth had a great deal to learn about even rudimentary magics. Without the blade Need about to keep her in hand, he had not felt safe about having Elspeth walking around loose without beginning those early lessons in basic control.
What he had not reckoned on-although, given her quick temper, he should have anticipated the difficulty-was her impatience with him.
She wanted answers, and she wanted them immediately. And when he was already impatient with himself, he didn't feel like explaining himself to an Outlander who had barely even seen magic in action before she came south.
Her insistence on forcing years' worth of learning into a few weeks was enough to drive the most patient of savants to distraction, much less her current teacher. She can be so irritating...He leaned his head back and stared up into the pattern of faint light and deep darkness created by moonlight, mage-lights, and tree branches.