Firstborn

12 — Idyll at the End of Summer

Arcuballis lowered its head to the clear water and drank. Not far from the hollow tree, where Anaya and Mackeli lived, a spring welled up from deep underground, creating a large, still pool. The water spilled over the lip of one side of the pool, cascading down natural steps of granite and bluestone.

It was two days after Kith-Kanan had flown them all safely home. He had come to the pool daily since then to bathe his wounded arm. Though tender, it was a clean wound and showed every sign of healing well.

Despite her own injury, Anaya would not let Kith-Kanan carry her to the pool. Instead, she directed Mackeli to bring her certain roots and leaves, from which she made a poultice. As Kith-Kanan watched her chew the medicinal leaves herself, he listened for the fourth time to Mackeli’s tale of capture and captivity.

“And then Voltorno told the woodcutters there were no evil spirits in the forest, and they believed him, until they came running back down the trail, screaming and falling on their hairy faces.”

“Do you suppose we could give him back?” Anaya interrupted with a bored expression.

“I think so,” offered Kith-Kanan. “The ship may not have sailed yet.”

Mackeli looked at the two of them open-mouthed. “Give me back!” he said, horrified. Slowly the boy smiled. “You’re teasing me!”

“I’m not,” said Anaya, wincing as she applied the chewed leaves and root paste to her wound. Mackeli’s face fell until Kith-Kanan winked at him.

“Come with me to the spring,” the prince said. It was better to leave Anaya alone. Her wound had made her testy.

Kith-Kanan led Arcuballis through the woods by its reins. Mackeli walked beside him.

“There is one thing I’m not clear about,” Kith-Kanan said after a time. “Was it Voltorno who cast the spell on me that first night, the night he stole Arcuballis from me?”

“It must have been,” Mackeli guessed. “His men were starved for meat, so Voltorno worked up a spell to enthrall any warmblooded creatures in the area. The deer, rabbits, boar, and other animals had long since fled, warned of the humans by the corvae. All he got for his trouble was your griffon, which he knew was rare and valuable.”

As Arcuballis drank its fill, the elf prince and the Kagonesti boy sat on a bluestone boulder and listened to the water cascading from the pool.

“I’m glad you and Ny are getting along,” Mackeli noted. “She is not easy to live with.”

“That I know.”

The Kagonesti tossed a twig into the water and watched as it was drawn down the miniature falls.

“Mackeli, what do you remember about your parents? Your mother and father—what were they like?”

Mackeli’s forehead wrinkled with deep thought. “I don’t know. I must have been a baby when they left.”

“Left? Do you mean died?”

“No. Ny always said our parents left us and meant to come back some day,” he said.

She and Mackeli looked so completely different, it was hard for Kith-Kanan to believe they were blood relatives.

“You know, Kith, I watched you fight with Voltorno. It was really something! The way you moved, swish, clang, swish!” Mackeli waved his hand in the air, holding an imaginary sword. “I wish I could fight like that.”

“I could teach you,” said Kith-Kanan. “If Anaya doesn’t mind.”

Mackeli wrinkled his nose, as if he smelled something bad. “I know what she’ll say: ‘Get out of this tree! You stink like metal!’ ”

“Maybe she wouldn’t notice.” The boy and the prince looked at each other and then shook their heads in unison. “She’d notice,” Kith-Kanan said. “We’ll just have to ask her.”

They walked back to the clearing. Anaya had limped, no doubt painfully, out of the tree into the one sunny spot in the clearing. An ugly smear of greenish paste covered her wound.

“Ny, uh, Kith has something to ask you,” Mackeli said quickly.

She opened her eyes. “What is it?”

Kith-Kanan tied Arcuballis to a tree in the shaded end of the clearing. He came to where Anaya was reclining and squatted down beside her.

“Mackeli wants to learn the use of arms, and I’m willing to teach him. Is that agreeable to you?”

“You wish to take up metal?” she said sharply to the boy. Mackeli nodded as his sister sat up, moving stiffly. “A long time ago, I made a bargain with the spirits of the forest. In return for their allowing me to hear and speak with the animals and trees, I was to be their guardian against outsiders, and those who would despoil the forest are my enemies. And the forest told me that the worst of these intruders carried metal, which is soulless and dead, torn from the deep underground, burned in fire, and used only to kill and destroy. In time the very smell of metal came to offend my nose.”

“You find it acceptable for me to carry a sword and dagger,” noted Kith-Kanan.

“The Forestmaster chose you for a task, and I cannot fault her judgment. You drove the intruders out, saving my brother and the forest.” She looked at Mackeli. “The choice is yours, but if you take up metal, the beasts will no longer speak to you. I may even have to send you away.”

Mackeli’s face showed shock. “Send me away?” he whispered. He looked around. The hollow oak, the shaded clearing, and Anaya were all he had ever known of home and family. “Is there no other way?”

“No,” Anaya said flatly, and tears sprang up in Mackeli’s eyes.

Kith-Kanan couldn’t understand the elf woman’s hardness. “Don’t despair, Mackeli,” he said consolingly. “I can teach swordsmanship using wooden staves in place of iron blades.” He looked at Anaya and added a bit sarcastically, “Is that allowed?”

She waved one hand dismissively. Kith-Kanan put a hand on Mackeli’s shoulder. “What do you say, do you still want to learn?” he asked. Mackeli blotted his eyes on his sleeve and sniffed, “Yes.”

As summer lay down like a tired hound and autumn rose up to take its place, Kith-Kanan and Mackeli sparred with wooden swords in the clearing. It was not harmless fun, and many bruises and black eyes resulted from unguarded blows landed on unprotected flesh. But there was no anger in it, and the boy and the prince developed more than fighting skill on those sunny afternoons. They developed a friendship. Bereft of home and family, with no real plans for the future, Kith-Kanan was glad to have something to fill his days.

Early on, Anaya watched them dance and dodge, shouting and laughing as the wooden “blades” hit home. Her side healed quickly, more quickly than Kith-Kanan thought natural, and before long Anaya retreated to the woods. She came and went according to her own whims, often returning with a dressed out hart or a snare line of rabbits. Kith-Kanan believed she had finally come to accept his presence in her home, but she did not join in the easy camaraderie that grew between him and her brother.

One day, as the first leaves were changing from green to gold, Kith-Kanan went down to the spring. Mackeli was off collecting from a rich harvest of fall nuts, and Anaya had been gone for several days. He patted Arcuballis’s flank in passing, then plunged into the cool shade along the path to the pool.

His newly sharpened senses caught the sound of splashing in the water halfway down the path. Curious, he slipped into the underbrush. Kith-Kanan crept along soundlessly—for his walking and breathing were much improved, also—until he came to the high ground overlooking the pool.

Treading water in the center of the pool was a dark-haired elf woman. Her raven-black tresses floated on the surface around her like a cloud of dense smoke. It took Kith-Kanan a moment to realize he was looking at Anaya. Her hair was free of its long braid, and all her skin paint was washed off; he nearly didn’t recognize her clean-scrubbed features. Smiling, he sat down by the trunk of a lichen-encrusted oak to watch her swim.

For all her stealth on land, Anaya was not a graceful swimmer. She paddled back and forth, using a primitive stroke. The fishers of the Thon-Thalas could teach her a thing or two, Kith-Kanan decided.

When she climbed out of the water onto a ledge of granite, Kith-Kanan saw that she was naked. Accustomed though he was to the highly prized pallor of city-dwellers, he found her sun-browned body oddly beautiful. It was lithe and firmly muscled. Her legs were strong, and there was an unconscious, easy grace in her movements. She was like a forest spirit, wild and free. And as Anaya ran her hands through her hair and hummed to herself, Kith-Kanan felt the stirrings of emotions he had thought dead months ago, when he’d fled Silvanost.

Anaya lay down on the rock ledge, pillowing her head with one arm. Eyes closed, she appeared to sleep. Kith-Kanan stood up and meant to slip around the far side of the pool in order to surprise her. But the hill was steep, and the vines were green enough to be slippery when his sandals crushed them. That Kith-Kanan was watching Anaya, not his footing, made the going even more treacherous. He took two steps and fell, sliding feet first down the hill into the pool.

He surfaced, choking and spitting. Anaya hadn’t moved, but she said, “You go to a lot of trouble just to see me bathe.”

“I—” the prince sneezed violently “—heard someone in the spring and came to investigate. I didn’t know it was you.” Despite the weight of his clothes and sword, he swam in long strokes to the ledge where she lay. Anaya made no move to cover herself, but merely moved over to give him room to sit on the rock.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Only my pride hurts.” He stood up, averting his eyes from her. “I’m sorry I intruded, I’ll go.”

“Go or stay. It doesn’t matter to me.” When he hesitated, Anaya added, “I am not modest in the fashion of your city females.”

“Yet you wear clothes,” he felt obliged to say. Uncomfortable as he was with her nudity, he felt strangely unwilling to leave her.

“A deerskin tunic is good protection from thorns.” Anaya watched Kith-Kanan with some amusement as his gaze flickered over her and away for a third time. “It bothers you. Give me your tunic.” He protested, but she insisted, so he removed his wet tunic.

She pulled it over her head. The tunic covered her to her knees. “Is that better?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I can’t get over how different you look,” he said. “Without lines painted on your face, I mean.” It was true. Her hazel eyes were large and darker than his twin’s. She had a small, full-lipped mouth and a high forehead.

As if in response, Anaya stretched lazily, like a big cat. She put more into, and seemed to get more out of, a simple stretch than anyone Kith-Kanan had ever seen. “Don’t the women of your race adorn themselves?” she inquired.

“Well, yes, but not to the point of disguising themselves,” he said earnestly. “I like your face. Seems a pity to cover it.”

Anaya sat up and looked at him curiously. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true,” he said simply.

She shook herself. “Don’t talk nonsense.”

“I hope you’re not angry with me any more for teaching Mackeli how to fight,” he said, hoping to draw the conversation out a little longer. He was enjoying talking with her.

She shrugged. “My injury made me short-tempered. I wasn’t angry with you.” She gazed out at the clear water. After a moment, she said slowly, “I am glad Mackeli has a friend.”

He smiled and reached a hand out to touch her arm. “You have a friend, too, you know.”

Quickly Anaya rolled to her feet and pulled his tunic off. Dropping it, she dove into the pool. She stayed under so long that Kith-Kanan began to worry. He was about to dive in after her when Mackeli appeared on the other side of the pool, his bag bursting with chestnuts.

“Hello, Kith! Why are you all wet?”

“Anaya went in the water and hasn’t come back up!”

Mackeli heaved the heavy sack to the ground. “Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s gone to her cave.” Kith-Kanan looked at him blankly. “There’s a tunnel in the pool that connects to a cave. She goes down there when she’s upset about something. Did you two have words?”

“Not exactly,” Kith-Kanan said, staring at the water’s surface. “I just told her I liked her face and that I was her friend.”

Mackeli scratched his cheek skeptically. “Well, there’s no use waiting there. She may not come up for days!” He hoisted the sack onto his narrow shoulder and added, “The cave is Ny’s secret place. We can’t get in.”

Kith-Kanan picked up his tunic and circled around the pool to where Mackeli stood. They walked up the path to the clearing. Every third step or so, Kith-Kanan looked back at the quiet spring. The forest woman was so difficult to understand. He kept hoping she would reappear, but she didn’t.

The sun set, and Mackeli and Kith-Kanan roasted chestnuts in the fire. When they were full, they lay on their backs in the grass and watched a fall of stars in the sky. The stars trailed fiery red tails across the black night, and Kith-Kanan marveled at the beauty of the sight. Living indoors in Silvanost, Kith-Kanan had seen only a few such falls. As the elf prince stared into the sky, a gentle wind tickled the branches of the trees and ruffled his hair.

Kith-Kanan sat up to get another handful of chestnuts. He saw Anaya sitting crosslegged by the fire and almost jumped out of his skin.

“What are you playing at?” he asked, irritated at being so startled.

“I came to share your fire.”

Mackeli sat up and poked a few roasted nuts from the ashes with a stick. Though they were hot, Anaya casually picked one up and peeled the red husk from the nut meat.

“Your task is long done, Kith,” she said in a low voice. “Why haven’t you returned to Silvanost?”

He chewed a chestnut. “I have no life there,” he said truthfully.

Anaya’s dark eyes looked out from her newly painted face. “Why not? Any disgrace you committed can be forgiven,” she said.

“I committed no disgrace!” he said with heat.

“Then go home. You do not belong here.” Anaya rose and backed away from the fire. Her eyes glowed in the firelight until she turned away.

Mackeli gaped. “Ny has never acted so strangely. Something is troubling her,” he said as he jumped to his feet. “I’ll ask.”

“No.” The single word froze Mackeli in his tracks. “Leave her alone. When she finds the answer, she’ll tell us.”

Mackeli sat down again. They looked into the red coals in silence for a while, then Mackeli said, “Why do you stay, Kith?”

“Not you, too!”

“Your life in the City of Towers was full of wonderful things. Why did you leave? Why do you stay here?”

“There’s nowhere else I want to go right now, and I’ve made friends here, or at least one friend.” He smiled at Mackeli. “As for why I left.” Kith-Kanan rubbed his hands together as if they were cold. “Once I was in love with a beautiful maiden, in Silvanost. She had wit and spirit, and I believed she loved me. Then it came time for my brother, Sithas, to marry. His wife was chosen for him by our father, the Speaker of the Stars. Of all the suitable maidens in the city, my father chose the one I loved to be my brother’s bride.” He pulled his dagger and drove it to the hilt in the dirt. “And she married him willingly!

She was glad to do it!”

“I don’t understand,” admitted Mackeli.

“Neither do I. Hermathya—” Kith-Kanan closed his eyes, seeing her in his mind and savoring the feel of her name on his lips “—seemed to love the idea of being the next speaker’s wife more than being married to one who loved her. So, I left home. I do not expect to see Silvanost again.”

The elf boy looked at Kith-Kanan, whose head hung down. The prince still gripped his dagger hilt tightly. Mackeli cleared his throat and said sincerely, “I hope you stay, Kith. Ny could never have taught me the things you have. She never told me the kind of stories you tell. She’s never seen the great cities, or the warriors and nobles and priests.”

Kith-Kanan had raised his head. “I try not to think beyond today, Keli. For now, the peace of this place suits me. Strange, after being used to all the comforts and extravagances of royal birth…” His voice trailed off.

“Perhaps we can make a new kingdom, here in the wildwood.”

Kith-Kanan smiled. “A kingdom?” he asked. “Just us three?”

With complete earnestness, Mackeli said, “Nations must begin somewhere, yes?”