"Debe rasir rial." (To live is to sing).
-Attributed to Terlin Deerfriend.
"I want a pie now!"
Raurfaen stifled a smile. One had to be firm with Elas, or she would only go on demanding a palm pie until he relented and bought her one. "No," he said. "I have money to buy you a palm pie right now, but then we won't have anything left for any treat later, unless we meet Mother and Father by accident. You'll just have to wait until we find something less expensive."
Elas's blue eyes crossed with the effort of glaring at him. Raurfaen looked back with the sternest face he could manage. Elas was the more determined of his five-year-old twin sisters, and she could not understand why the world wasn't bowing to her will this summer.
"We could split a pie," she hazarded.
Raurfaen shook his head. "No. They taste good, but we would both want more." If he let Elas talk him into buying her a pie now, he probably would buy his own, unable to help himself.
"We could split it," Elas insisted, smiling up at him and relaxing her aggressive stance. The silver curls clustered around her face bounced as she reformed her whole face into a winsome mask. "Please, Raur."
She could feel his emotions, of course, and so knew that he wasn't that dedicated to refusing her. Raurfaen shook his head, though, and firmed his will. At least his parents had taken charge of Yahnnea, so he didn't have to deal with them both. Elas was bad enough by herself; the twins united were as strong as a storm. "No means no, Elas."
She pouted at him, then held out her arms. "Pick me up," she said.
Raurfaen was willing to do that. She was heavy, but he had come into his final spurt of growth this year, the last year of his true childhood before the adolescence that would last until his thousandth birthday. He was stronger than he had ever been, and he hoisted Elas up with a speed that made her giggle.
"Let's go over there," she said, pointing to the musicians and snuggling her face into his neck.
Raurfaen walked obediently towards the cluster of lutanists and harpers. They weren't as good as the music that his mother had been teaching him to create, but then, few things were.
Raurfaen smiled. Learning that he had magic, the same kind of magic that his mother possessed, had been more than fun so far. He could create music from air, and was learning to create images and voices in the way that his mother could do. He had mostly failed so far.
That didn't matter.
Very little seemed to matter but pleasure during the Summercascade Festival, for all that it was supposed to honor Suulta, the Goddess of Calm, and so be a little restrained. Musicians played. Some mages, carefully watched by the guards hired from the local high blood's coffers, performed small tricks. Vendors sold damath cookies, and, yes, palm pies. Elwens who might not see each other for months thanks to the demands of their farms chattered and laughed, or flirted over cups of wine, or told stories of hardship and suffering for exclamations of sympathy.
There was more serious business going on, of course, but Raurfaen didn't have to pay attention to it until next summer. He merrily ignored it, therefore, and turned away from it when it appeared.
They halted in front of the musicians, who sat under a fianda tree as much for the shade as for the effect the silvery-gray bark made against their dark clothes, Raurfaen thought. The two harpers were just finishing a song that was for harps alone, and sipped from the wine that two servants of the local Lady offered them. Raurfaen saw the lutanists tuning up and smiled, content to wait.
Elas was not content to wait. "Hurry up!" she yelled.
Two of the players looked up, chuckled, and went back to tuning. The third looked directly at Elas and smiled. "Just a little while, miada," she said, stroking the strings and rousing a quick ripple of music. A sour note sounded, and she curled her lip and adjusted something. "We have to make sure that the music won't sound like the howling of wolves first."
"I like the howling of wolves," said Elas. "I can hear them singing in the woods in the winter. They're very pretty."
The lutanist looked at Raurfaen for help.
"I'm afraid that there's not much I can say to help you," said Raurfaen, giving a shrug that made Elas yelp. "She's always like this."
The woman started to reply, and then fell silent, staring hard at him. Raurfaen stared back. She was worth the look- dark-skinned in a way that couldn't just be a tan or grime worked into her skin, with long silver hair flowing down her shoulders and brilliant green eyes. Raurfaen wished he knew for certain what people she belonged to, but his mother had only just started to teach him about the different races of Elwens.
"Is something wrong, my lady?" Raurfaen asked, when the staring had gone on for a moment longer than he felt comfortable with.
"Perhaps," said the lutanist slowly, surprising him. He had expected she would just shrug it away, whatever it was, and get on with her tuning. "I suppose this question will make little sense to you, but have you ever been to Rowan?"
Raurfaen gaped, then laughed. "My lady, you must be joking! How far is it, seven thousand miles? Of course not."
"I wondered," said the woman, and went back to tuning her instrument without taking her gaze from his face. "You see, there is a- a sense about you, an air about you, that I have seen only once before."
Raurfaen stiffened, and did his best to keep his emotions from changing. The woman was probably land Elwen enough to sense any change, and he would alarm Elas if he suddenly blasted anger and fear. His mother had told him only a month ago that his grandfather was someone important enough to receive constant assassination attempts on his life, and that Raurfaen looked almost exactly like him.
It was possible that this woman had been in Rowan and seen his grandfather- if that was where the man lived; Raurfaen had promised his mother not to ask- and so recognized him in Raurfaen's face.
Raurfaen considered swiftly, not taking his gaze from the woman. Elas should be safe enough. She looked like their mother, and their mother didn't resemble her father at all. But he might get in trouble, if this woman was one of the apparently numerous people with a grudge against his grandfather, and he didn't want to catch Elas up in it.
"Sing a song!"
Raurfaen sighed in relief. His little sister might have saved him. Several other people took up her cry, and the musician turned away and bowed her head over her instrument again.
Raurfaen turned away, thinking it was best to put some distance between himself and the singers before the end of the tune.
Elas protested, loudly. "I want to hear them sing!"
Raurfaen ground his teeth, but turned back, as patiently as he could. He would attract more attention if he walked away now. Besides, what could the woman try, with so many people around them?
The singers were arguing in soft voices, apparently over what they were going to sing. The dark-skinned woman seemed to win out. She turned back and faced the audience, smiling.
"I am going to sing you a song about one of the Goddess's greatest heroes," she said in a level voice. "It is only appropriate, since this is a festival in honor of the Goddess. I will sing you a song of Melsinon Shirrindolor, who brought the Goddess and Her reign back to Oak."
Some stares, some applause, and some nods. Raurfaen thought it depended on how much the person in question honored the Goddess.
"This is history!" said Elas in a shrill voice that attracted more stares and chuckles. "This is boring!"
"Hush," said Raurfaen in her ear. "You'll learn something. And we'll get a palm pie later."
He did wonder why the dark-skinned woman was staring at him as she sang the song. He had heard the story before. Probably everyone older than Elas had.
"Those were the days, the dawn days of peace, And on the city of Rowan the stars shed surcease. She was most favored, the queen of the Tableland. But not over all was the shadow of her hand. "In Oak the defiant standard rose; and its bearer bright Had hair like early frost and eyes like spring midnight. His name was Melsinon, Melsinon Shirrindolor, His banner the serpent mandolin that shall fly nevermore. "Lord of Rowan, Herran Turnlong, son of a family great, Was unused to being defied outside his city-state. He had let humans in, opened his gates to them. How ridiculous it seemed the old ways to defend! "But Melsinon was a follower of Suulta, Lady White. She had declared that no land Elwen in his right Heart might associate with the short-lived creatures. And so Melsinon banished them, fair and ugly features. "But Herran marched upon Oak, sure the walls would crumble And Melsinion's people like rotted fruit would tumble. But he had underestimated the strength of the oak tree That lives through the winter storm, spring for to see. "Melsinon sent the folk of Rowan home howling, And then held his own people back from the following. 'No,' he said, and 'No,' again. 'I must follow after, For the serpent mandolin must bear the bards' laughter.' "He rode after Herran Turnlong, Turnlong of the great, And met him three days later before Rowan's gate. They spoke in voices low, voices soft with heat. None know the bargain terms Melsinon made him meet. "But it is certain that, from that day to this, The city of Oak has lived in Suulta's unending bliss. No human passes its gates; no human is let in. And the people owe their peace to the serpent mandolin."
The song finished, to some polite and some heated applause. Elas sniffed. "History, just like I said," she said in Raurfaen's ear. "Let's go get the palm pie."
Raurfaen nodded, and started to turn away.
But a hand fell on his shoulder. Raurfaen turned around, staring into the lutanist's face. Her instrument was slung over her shoulder now, and with it in that position, she seemed to have become a different person. Her face was twisted as she stared at him, and dark starlight burned in her eyes.
"I know who you are," she said softly. "I have suffered at his hands. All my people have suffered at his hands."
Raurfaen shook his head. "I don't know who you are or what you're talking about."
The people around him were glancing in his direction, but as yet, Raurfaen was not alarmed enough to make them move closer. The woman bent close to him, staring at him as if her gaze could rip off his face.
"Do you not?" she asked, and pulled her lips back.
Raurfaen recoiled. She had fangs. She must be part darkness Elwen, he thought frantically.
That meant she could eat his soul, if she wanted.
"What are you doing, Raurfaen?" Elas twisted around to look at the woman. "Is she evil?"
The woman started, as if she had forgotten that Elas was there, and then looked at the little girl with a strange smile.
"No," Raurfaen whispered, feeling her emotions shift and change.
"Oh, yes," countered the woman, gazing at him with the same smile riding her lips. "I think so. It might sate me to claim your death, but I don't just want death. I want pain, too. And the best way to make you suffer is to have you watch as I kill your sister, before I take my price from you."
"Raurfaen!" said Elas, with fear in her voice.
The people around them, land Elwens all, could feel emotions, and for the first time were beginning to realize that something was wrong. They moved forward, cautiously, not understanding.
They wouldn't understand until it was too late.
The woman bared her fangs and leaned forward, slowly, gracefully, aiming at Elas's throat. She would strike in a moment, Raurfaen knew, and he would be too slow to stop her.
He couldn't even call emotional magic. His fear was drying his throat, and he needed rage to do anything, even burn the woman's face off like part of him wanted to do.
The woman struck.
Raurfaen screamed, and reacted on what seemed instinct, calling the magic that he and his mother shared, the magic that she was teaching him, slowly and with careful procedures, to handle. Blue light limned his body in instants, spreading out to enclose Elas in the same azure envelope.
At the same moment, a deafening chorus of lutes playing the Song of the Serpent Mandolin exploded from air around the woman's head. The lutanist reeled to the side, snarling and raising her hands to clutch at her ears.
Raurfaen thought Elas screamed. He couldn't be sure. He turned, and tossed his little sister to another woman, who looked startled but caught Elas before she could fall. Then he turned back, and concentrated as hard as he could, making the chorus of lutes play louder and louder.
Searing pain began in his own ears, but he didn't dare stop. The magical music was the only thing keeping the woman off-balance. If he stopped to spare himself, then she might recover and attack again.
She was trying to recover, he could see that. But abruptly she tossed her head back and screamed.
Raurfaen felt it at almost the same time, exploding pain followed by silence. His eardrums had burst.
He almost fainted with the pain. He did sag to the ground, on one arm, and the blue light around him vanished. He knew the music had most likely stopped as well, but there was nothing that he could do about that.
He looked up to see the singer looming over him, her face a crazy thing that would haunt his nightmares forever, if there was a chance that he might live past this moment. He stared into her eyes, wanting to flinch or scream or look away, but unable to do such a thing with the conviction that he was about to die ringing in his head. He would not be a coward in the face of his own mortality.
Then the woman slumped oddly, one hand rising as if to feel the back of her neck.
Raurfaen looked past her fingers and could just make out the shape of a crossbow bolt, buried to the fletching in her skin. One of the hired guards had finally done his job, Raurfaen thought, muzzily.
The woman slumped.
People began running towards him then, and Raurfaen finally felt free to give in to the pain and close his eyes.
_____________________________________________________
"He'll be well."
Raurfaen opened his eyes, for a moment surprised that he had eyes to open on something other than the star-realm. Then he realized he could hear, as well, and that a familiar scent was in his nostrils.
"Mother?" he said aloud.
Sahsraiinar's face appeared in his vision, her dark blue eyes gleaming with tears as Raurfaen had not seen them since the summer day she told him of his heritage. She embraced him tightly, whispering, "You were so close to death," over and over.
"But I'm not now," said Raurfaen, embracing her back, as much question as statement.
"No, you're not."
Raurfaen looked up. His father, Ilend Luviavanishay, was in the small healer's room as well, cradling Yahnnea in his arms and holding Elas's hand with his free one, his own eyes shining with relief. But neither his father nor his sisters had spoken.
A tall man Raurfaen didn't recognize stepped past them all, staring at Raurfaen with stern eyes the color of a starless sky. Raurfaen stared tensely at him for a moment, but though he wasn't land Elwen- his skin was dark blue, and looked like the planes of some gem- he obviously wasn't darkness Elwen either. Raurfaen relaxed.
The man smiled, and it changed his whole face. Raurfaen found himself smiling back. Whoever this man was, he wasn't a threat.
"You saved your own life, and your sister's," the man continued. Raurfaen felt his mother's arms embrace him the more tightly, and blinked. That was right. Elas had been in danger, too. It was that which had inspired him to reach for his magic in the first place. "And that was quite an impressive display of power."
Raurfaen gaped at him. "Who are you, my lord?"
"My name is Dadien," said the man at once. "Not 'lord' anything." He smiled again, to take any sting there might have been out of his words. "I am a somak, or sapphire Elwen." He glanced down at his own blue skin. "You might have guessed that.
"I am here because I am a healer, hired by the Lady Imentia to serve during the Summercascade." Raurfaen nodded. "I healed your eardrums.
"And I felt your magic. I don't know how. I was on the other side of the fair when you called the music. But I felt it, and that is most curious. It felt like sapphire Elwen magic."
Dadien leaned forward, staring into Raurfaen's eyes. "You may speak freely," he said. "Your mother has told me that she, too, possesses such magic, though not of its origin. But the magic she wields is not the same as that which you possess.
"And hers is of considerably lesser strength. I am here to ask you to accept training as much as anything else. Your magic could very easily have unintended effects, since you have discovered it so late in life."
"I'm only fourteen."
Dadien smiled faintly. "That is late to begin training. But I would ask you to accept training anyway."
"Mother?"
Sahsraiinar looked up at him, eyes still teary. "It is your decision, lonu," she said. "Whatever you wish."
Raurfaen looked at his father. Ilend nodded back, green eyes firm and strong. "I can't say I'm not surprised," he said. "But whatever you wish to do about this is independent of me. I give you my blessing. What else can I give?"
Raurfaen looked up at Dadien. "Thank you for saving my ears, my lord. But I truly can't make a decision at the moment."
"I understand." The sapphire Elwen bowed. "I have a pavilion on the edge of the fair. Ask anyone when you are ready to speak with me, and I will be there."
He turned as if to leave, then turned back. His eyes shone like black opals as they met Raurfaen's again. "I am making the offer not only because of your magic," Dadien added softly. "It is unusual, but there are others who could tutor you. I ask also because of the courage you showed, and because I would think it an honor to have such a student."
His heart beating in his throat, Raurfaen met the man's gaze as well as he could. "I was scared," he said.
Dadien only smiled as if he didn't believe him, and departed.
Raurfaen closed his eyes. For a moment, his mind buzzed with questions. How had sapphire Elwen magic come to a land Elwen family? How could he possibly accept this offer, or refuse it? What would it entail?
"I never did get a palm pie," said Elas imperiously.
Raurfaen let the questions pass into laughter, and after that his mother's embrace. He didn't have to decide right now. He had faced death for the first time, and looked into a darkness Elwen's eyes.
That was enough for one day.
