"What is the world, but happiness? What is the universe, but joy?"
-Attributed to the infinity Elwen Jesglideika, in the diary of Peranor Lightfoot, Lord of Tamlura and hero of the Questing.
"Stop where you are!"
Resal drew his gaze back from the sunset and blinked at the woman in front of him. "I was stopping," he said. "In fact, I was stopped." He turned his back towards her and smiled at the orange that arched overhead. "I've only seen a sunset this color a few times," he said happily. "And with as long a life as I've lived, that's saying something. Did you know that the stars sing when the sky's this color? They know-"
"Be quiet!"
Resal glanced at her again. "There's no need to be rude about it."
But, now that he was looking at her, he could already feel his irritation draining away. She was interesting. She was alalori, of course- with her golden skin and dawn-marked eyes, shimmering with gold like lightning strikes, no one could doubt that- but she faced him bravely enough, instead of cowering the way that dawn Elwens usually did. Her hair was long and dark, hanging to the middle of her back. That was another unusual thing. Resal didn't think he had ever seen an alalori with dark hair.
"What are you doing here?" asked the woman. Her voice was a little less tense, but not by much.
Resal looked back at her face, and plunged into the Stream, the flow of knowledge and emotion that ran around everything. Wild knowledge flashed past him, some of it about this woman, some not. He managed to draw in enough, though, to be certain of her name. "Bari?"
At once, the woman's face went smooth and cold. Her fingers clenched on the glass sunburst that she wore at her throat. "Yes?" she said.
Resal blinked, feeling magic drawing in around her. She actually might be preparing to kill him. That was something else that most alalori would never do. They worshipped a god who was quite emphatic about things like that.
"I mean you no harm."
"That doesn't explain what you're doing here."
Resal shrugged. The Stream flashed around him. It was interesting here, but he could always go somewhere else and come back in a few millennia, when Bari would probably be gone. "I'm traveling. I'm a wilesa. We all travel."
"Why?"
Resal blinked again. "What do you mean, why? There's a world to see. We go see it."
Bari shook her head, her lips thinning. "I don't believe you."
"You could have told if I were lying. All Elwens can do that." Resal paused, fascinated. "Unless you're not really Elwen, of course."
"What?"
Resal nodded. "If you're disguising yourself as an Elwen, then you wouldn't be able to tell if I was lying or not. But the Stream should have told me." He leaned forward and stared into her face. "The eyes would be the hardest thing to feign. And I really think that you would have chosen another race to be. Alalori aren't that formidable."
"And infinity Elwens are?"
Resal smiled. "No one wants to hurt me."
Bari stared at him a moment longer. Then she shook her head and looked away. "Everyone wants to hurt someone, nowadays," she whispered. "I'm protecting a village of humans. There are Elwen hunters who would kill them if they knew where they were, down to the smallest child, and would slaughter me for protecting them."
"Why?"
Bari turned around to stare again. If anything, she was more incredulous than before. Resal reached towards the Stream to find out why, but she told him before he could sort out the knowledge from the churning infinity all around him. "There was a war two years ago," she said sharply. "The humans- most of them, anyway- wanted us dead, as they have since they came here. They banded together and made a credible attempt to destroy the magic in the world. They didn't succeed, but our kin have started butchering them for trying. And some of them won't listen to reason, and so try to kill even the humans who didn't have anything to do with the Sublimation." Bari shook her head, tears starting in her eyes. "It will all end in blood before it's done."
"Maybe not."
"Why not?"
Resal shrugged again. "I was traveling another continent at the time. I don't have a stake in killing humans. If I think I should help you, then I might be able to."
Bari stared at him with guarded eyes. "I shouldn't have told you," she muttered. "I just get so weary, guarding them all by myself-"
"Show me the village."
Bari stared at him for a moment longer, then turned and walked down the path she had accosted him in the middle of. Resal followed, glancing at the sunset and nodding in quiet approval.
"Beautiful," he said to no one in particular.
__________________________________________________________
The village was very small, but neat, neater than usual for a human place. Resal studied the small white stone houses surreptitiously, and thought he could see an Elwen hand in them. Either Bari had had help at first, or she knew enough about building to provide some guidance.
The houses themselves were set back among the trees, almost concealed thickly enough by branches that it would be hard to see them if you didn't know what you were looking for, Resal thought. But he did. He had been around more formidable fortifications than this, and better hiding jobs. In fact, even the best here could use some improvement.
The humans came out of their houses to watch him pass. The overwhelming majority were women and children, Resal noticed, all with the same almost blank faces and callused hands. He couldn't understand why at first, until he remembered that it was a peculiarity of humans to let only their men fight in wars. This Sublimation Bari spoke of must have taken most of the men.
Bari spoke soothingly to the people they passed, using a simple version of Tema that raised cautious smiles and nods. Resal sighed sadly. The Stream didn't sparkle and flash around these people, as it should when they were greeting a friend. Despite her protection of them, they still saw Bari as an outsider. It was unfortunate.
Of course, he didn't take that sorrow too personally. He had lived for more than a million years, and learned to accept joy as the natural state of life early in his first millennia. An infinity Elwen had to do that, or risk death too soon.
Bari slowed as they reached the edge of the tiny village, a slightly smaller house that included an extension to the side. "It is nearly time for sunset prayers," she said, indicating the extension. It must be a chapel, Resal thought. "Will you join me?"
Her gaze was a challenge. Resal couldn't figure out why. He shrugged, nodded, and walked past her towards the chapel while she was still gaping.
"I thought wilesai didn't worship the Lord of Sunlight," said Bari, catching up to him as he entered the chapel.
"We don't."
"Then how can you share my prayers?"
"We pray in our own way."
Bari hesitated, staring at him as if she didn't know whether that was blasphemy. Then she shook her head and sank to one knee before the altar, her head bowed as she began to murmur in a rhythmic chant.
Resal looked around, nodding as he saw that the chapel was well-built for what Bari had. He had of course seen far more elaborate shrines and even temples to the God Sarastaa in the southern alalori cities, but then, they had jewels and firegold stone and sweet-smelling woods to work with. This chapel had been built of stones piled on top of each other and sealed tight with pimya mortar, then decorated with what looked to be hand-carved sunbursts and statues of flames chipped bodily out of the living stone. The altar was the most elaborate thing in here- or perhaps it was the beginning of the Litany carved where Bari knelt, so that Resal couldn't really see the letters. Every temple to Sarastaa had to have the Litany carved on the floor, basically commanding the alalori to spread peace, to harm none, to act with honor, to refrain from war, and do other things that made Bari seem even more unusual.
Resal tilted his head back, examining the ceiling. It was a simple dome. Carvings hadn't yet begun on it, really, but there was a very small flame cut in the corner. It looked to be in the same hand as had done all the other carvings.
He waited patiently until her prayers were finished, ascending in the Stream as he did so. Bari's faith surged chaotically about the chapel, the flame that she had kindled with prayer after prayer. As always with the Stream, Resal could catch bits of the chant, but never the whole thing.
"The villagers don't join you in your prayers?" he asked, when Bari climbed at last to her feet, with one final bow to the altar.
Bari glanced over her shoulder at him. Her gaze caught the sunlight pouring in through the single window, and flashed almost too brilliantly to be looked at, a property of dawn-marked eyes. Resal's own silver eyes did the same thing in starlight. "No."
Resal bit his lip. This was interesting, again. And though he probably could have turned to the Stream to find out the answers, he had developed a taste in the last few years for asking for replies from Elwens' own lips. "I thought it was the duty of your faith to convert them as soon as possible?"
Bari looked down, running one hand over the altar.
Resal nodded. He had thought something was wrong. "You decided not to do so?"
Bari nodded, still not looking at him.
Resal shrugged. "I think no less of you for it," he said, and she looked up in surprise, perhaps for the truth in his voice. "We all do what we can to survive, and sometimes what we must. If they don't want to worship your god, then they don't want to. At least you haven't done what some of your kin would do, and left them to fend for themselves because of that."
Bari blanched.
Resal tipped his head to the side. He was learning more from gestures than words today. "I take it that there were others who left?"
"Yes," said Bari, speaking at last. Her hands clenched as if she would strike out; her eyes flashed. "Cowards, all of them! They didn't have the courage to live by the Litany when it really came down to the test. They all declared that we didn't owe the humans anything, that they weren't the Lord's children at all, that they had tried to kill Elwens and so we shouldn't save them-" Her anger seemed to choke off the rest of her words. Her hands clenched, and she made a sharp gesture with her head. "I stayed, and they left."
"Why did you stay?"
"Because I wanted to defend these people." Bari turned sharply on him. "Is there any better reason?"
"Perhaps not," said Resal thoughtfully. "But I haven't seen any signs of immediate danger yet. Why do you think that this village needs to be protected from a wandering wilesa?"
"The Lord has granted me visions."
"I thought that visions came only to a High Priest or Priestess."
Bari smiled grimly in response. "I am the High Priestess for Alvai now, at least as far as anyone else is concerned," she said. "The villagers don't worship Sarastaa, but there is a temple here, and I am, by default, the highest-ranking member here. So. The God granted me a vision. There are lightning Elwens running wild in Sweptoria. The land Elwens are making no attempt to check them. I don't understand! What could be the price of so much blood?"
"The humans did nearly destroy the lightning Elwens two Ages ago," said Resal quietly, "in the first War. I think that Rowan is probably glancing the other way while they take their revenge. I take it that Rowan was in charge of the war effort?"
"Yes."
Resal nodded again. "Then there is one thing that might work, you know, better than trying to remain here and defend your flock indefinitely. Contact Rowan. The Lord Herran is known to have several human villages under his protection- or was when I left Arcadia- and I doubt that he would allow anyone to harm them. If you can appeal to him and place Alvai under his ward, then the lightning Elwens couldn't touch you. It wouldn't matter how angry they were."
Bari stared at him, her mouth slightly open. Then it shut with a click, and she shook her head. "It wouldn't work."
"Have you tried it?" asked Resal peaceably.
Bari turned from him, her back stiff. The Stream around her was glowing like fire, flashing like diamonds. Resal narrowed his eyes in concern. Something else was wrong here, something worse than fear and anger at her people's cowardice.
"What is it?"
Bari's hands closed spasmodically, then opened. "You have not even told me your name yet," she said.
"Resal."
Bari turned at once, her eyes seeking his face. "Is that supposed to be a joke?" she asked. "The name means 'ill-fortune.'"
"Yes. I know."
"And you never considered taking a different name?"
Resal shook his head. His hair swayed into the corners of his vision, long and blue. He really needed to get it cut again, he noted as he tucked it behind his ears. "What does a name matter? It isn't the same as a soul. Besides, you were telling me something that you didn't tell me before."
Bari sighed. "I don't know why I'm stalling. You could learn it easily enough if you left Alvai. Everyone would be happy to tell you." She glanced up at the dome. "But let us speak of this in the house. I think it would dishonor the God if I were to tell you here."
Resal went peaceably enough. It was starting to sadden him, that Bari was trying to complete a chapel that had been erected by a group of alalori, clinging stubbornly to what her kin had abandoned. He thought there would be enough sadness in the story to deal with, without that.
_____________________________________________________
The house was as simple as the chapel; in fact, the chapel had more decoration, though the house had more furniture. Resal took his place in a small chair to which Bari gestured him, and accepted the offer of water with a nod. He was intent on remaining as silent as possible. She would probably tell him more if he was silent.
It worked. Bari had barely served him the water before she started talking, loosely and disjointedly.
"When the Sublimation began, my people retreated. They didn't want to be part of the war, or be part of the 'human question' at all."
"Wise." Resal sipped his water.
Bari shot him a miserable glance. "No. You don't understand. We knew they were killing alalori in the cities where there wasn't a strong presence of the God. Those dawn Elwens died willingly, without lifting a hand or a weapon, but they still died. And then the humans came and started killing innocents under our protection, corame and others sworn never to handle a weapon.
"We surrendered. We struck a truce."
Resal, his water rising towards his lips again, lowered his cup slowly. He stared directly at Bari. Bari sat with her head turned to the side, the long fall of dark hair shading her face.
"You did what?"
"Struck a truce," said Bari hollowly. "Gave them information on land Elwen troop movements, and granted them free passage through the dawnlight forests, in return for their promise to hurt no more of the God's faithful."
"I can see why this would be painful to you."
Bari looked up quickly. "Thank you," she said at last. "Thank you for that. But the fact remains that we betrayed our kin, and that is probably at least part of the reason that the brinnai have been set free. The lightning Elwens take revenge on anything with round eyes, even half-Elwens in some cases. The Lord Herran won't care."
Resal leaned back in the chair. For a moment, his own agitation threatened to overcome him. The dawn Elwens had done the same thing in other wars, compromising with the enemy in order to avoid bad consequences for their own people, but never had they done it when it was perfectly clear that the enemy wanted to kill every Elwen off. He wasn't sure that he shouldn't just leave Bari to take her punishment.
Then the Stream caught him up again, and Resal smiled. What was one betrayal, after all, against the grand flow of everything that existed? Yes, the betrayal had caused deaths, which were horrifying, but he couldn't do anything to bring back the dead. He could do something to keep more people from dying, though.
And those lives he could save were just as precious as the ones that had been taken.
He looked up at Bari. "Did your vision tell you when the lightning Elwens were supposed to visit?" he asked.
"In a few days at the latest."
Resal nodded. "Then I have a few days to look around Alvai and get to know the people here."
Bari swallowed, so hard that Resal could hear her throat click from several feet away. "You will help us?"
"Of course."
"For a moment- I was not sure."
Resal shrugged. "Attribute it to self-interest if you like. I can feel death. Every person, every animal, every planet who perishes removes another note from the song and thus the Stream. Of course, people and animals and plants die all the time, but if a death can be prevented, it should be."
Bari smiled. For the first time, Resal thought he glimpsed a part of the untroubled peace that was supposed to infuse all the alalori all the time. "Thank you. Those words are not enough, of course, but they are all I can give."
Resal smiled. "They will be more than enough."
_________________________________________________
"What are you doing?"
The children looked up, frozen, as Resal neared them. The Stream around them was dim, their songs almost stifled by hardship and fear and almost any number of things, none of which Resal cared to feel.
He studied the circle drawn in the sand and nodded, recognizing the design of the ancient game. It was probably older than he was, and that was saying something. "A'lo, I take it?"
The bravest of the children, a girl with brown eyes so wide that Resal could almost see the Stream through them, nodded.
"With sticks or stones?"
"You know a'lo?" interrupted one of the few boys near the circle, leaning forward with sparkling eyes.
Resal nodded.
"Show us how to play with sticks?" asked the girl who had nodded before. "My name is Kina. I only ever knew how to play with stones. What's your name?"
"Resal."
They didn't appear to know the Primal, which was both fortunate and unsurprising. Human children didn't receive nearly as much education as Elwen children, in part because they didn't have millennia to acquire it as even the shortest-lived Elwen did. Resal sank down and tossed a small stick into the middle of the circle.
"I place this here. Then you place another one beside it," he explained. "I decide whether I want to take up your stick or take mine back again- but I have to pick one of them up. Then someone else tosses one down, and it continues until everyone has at least two sticks. Then we have to make up excuses for laying them down. The excuses have to be good, though, stories that everyone can accept. The first person to have no sticks at all wins."
"That sounds a lot more complicated than playing with stones," said Kina doubtfully.
"Fun, though," said the boy. "My name is Petrin," he added, by way of introduction, and tossed a stick into the center of the circle. "I want the one you tossed down." He snatched up the stick that Resal had laid down.
"I wanted that one!" Kina objected.
"Why?" Resal asked her.
The girl blinked for a moment. She apparently hadn't expected to be confronted over the reason for her choice. Then her face lit. "Because of the knob on it," she said, pointing to a rather warty-looking lump on the stick that Petrin held. Petrin clutched it closer; she ignored that. "It can dig at things. I could probably prop open a door with it, by wedging it under the door."
Resal looked at the rest of the children. "What do you think? Is that a good enough excuse?"
The others laughed, and a lively debate ensued. Resal smiled, and let them get on with things, only now and then interjecting a comment or recommendation when the game would have gotten out of control.
The only trouble there might have been came when he selected a particular stick, Kina challenged him on it, and he gave the truth: "It shines in the Stream."
"What's the Stream?" asked Petrin.
Resal held out a hand, and the air above his palm began to glow softly, turning as blue as his skin. Dropping his barriers, he let the light that would leak out of him all the time if he didn't stop it begin to shine. He turned his hand in an old, familiar pattern, and a starry tunnel opened in the air.
"Part of this," he said calmly. "Infinity. There are many lights there. The stick has one. See?" He nodded to one that shone especially bright, flashing red and green in the middle of the white, like a diamond. "And can you hear the song?" It was audible, just barely; this was a small opening into the Stream. "This stick has an especially pleasant note." And it did, a high, almost squeaky singing that trembled and vibrated in his ears.
The children stared at him with their mouths open. Resal smiled back and dropped his hand, letting the tunnel fade. That might have been a little much to tax them with, he thought.
Then Kina said, "What does my light look like?"
"No," interrupted Petrin. "I want to see mine first!"
Resal smiled, and obliged.
_________________________________________________________
"I saw you with the children today."
Resal looked up, startled. He had been helping to hoe one of the small garden patches that Alvai depended on for its survival. Well, at least helping. He had really been hoeing in his own special fashion, which involved locating the weeds' lights in the Stream and moving them elsewhere.
Bari stood in front of him, her face unreadable. Resal touched the Stream around her. Hard sparkles of light. She probably wanted to speak to him in private, he thought, standing and accompanying her out of the garden.
"All the children can talk about is magic," said Bari, the moment they were away from the hard, suspicious stares of the human women. "They're going to begin wondering why they don't have any."
"Is that a bad thing?"
Bari hesitated, staring at him. Once again, Resal had the feeling that she didn't understand him. Of course, that wasn't unusual. The way that he saw the world was manifestly simple, and it worked, but other people couldn't often seem to grasp it.
"Humans are uncomfortable around magic," said Bari. "They don't even like me to perform the little healing prayers that I ask the God for." Her fingers brushed against the glass sunburst about her neck. "They don't even like me wearing this. They started the Sublimation in an attempt to drive magic out of the world forever."
"Then we should get them used to it while they're children," said Resal peaceably. "That would seem to me the obvious solution, at least."
"Do you think that would stop it?"
Resal raised his eyebrows. "Of course. Their hatred strikes me as fear, not envy. If they really thought that magic was a 'taint,' as I have been told they claimed in the past, they wouldn't want it. And they do. The longing I saw on Kina's and Petrin's faces confirms that much."
"But when they find out they can't have it, unless they somehow do manage to survive a direct lightning strike from a magestorm-"
Resal laughed. Bari paused again, as if the sound were strange to her. "I can't draw worth a damn. I spent a lot of time as a child wanting to draw. By the time I finally realized I couldn't, I had grown out of the desire. No. I think that getting Kina and Petrin used to magic will mean that they will accept its existence as they grow older, but won't necessarily desire it for themselves."
Bari gnawed her lip for a moment, then nodded. "If you think so."
"Of course."
Bari sighed again, then smiled. "I suppose that I'm really envious because you fit in so well here, without even trying. I don't have magic that really impresses them. Light isn't the same thing."
"Why should that matter?"
Bari blinked. "If I were to try getting them used to magic-"
"But you have something else, something that made you stay when your kin fled." Resal squinted at her thoughtfully, listening for the note that was Bari in the complexity of the world's song. "Yes. You have a wonderful soul. They do admire you for that. They just don't often show it."
Bari's mouth fell open. Resal watched in puzzlement. Surely she must have known that. He couldn't understand why it appeared to astonish her.
"I should get back to weeding," he said at last, when Bari just continued to stare at him.
Bari nodded.
Resal walked away, continuing to glance over his shoulder and shake his head. The world was so simple, so joyous. Why couldn't more people see it the way he did?
______________________________________________
He waited in the shade of the trees near the path that led to Alvai. The golden autumn moon, Lureth, was full and high in the air, shining like a second sun. It would reveal him too clearly if he stood in the open. And he didn't want the lightning Elwens to notice him until it was too late to resist.
There.
There they came.
Resal sniffed. They just walked openly up the path, lightning snapping on their skin and around their bodies in the electrical auras they always carried with them. Moonlight flashed sometimes on their swords and spears. No attempt to even disguise themselves, or look as if they were ashamed of what they were doing.
Of course, someone could be trying to sneak up on the village...
Resal widened his view of the Stream. No. There was just this bunch.
He stepped out and bowed to the leader of the group, flinching as he found the woman's note in the song. It was discordant and shrill. Of course, notes of any kind were necessary for the Stream to flow, but there were still some that were more pleasant than others were.
"I am protecting this village," he said. "The humans didn't do anything to help hurt you. What lay between their ancestors and you is your business. Leave."
The lightning Elwen woman hesitated, staring at him. Resal waited patiently. Few of his kin ever had much intercourse with infinity Elwens. His people might take lovers from among other races or even linger in one place for a few decades, but they always wandered on at last. They were made to go see as much of reality as possible. He couldn't blame the brinna for taking a moment to recognize a wilesa.
It turned out, though, that that wasn't the main source of her hesitation. "We are rounding these humans up and taking them to a city on the coast," she said harshly.
"Which city?"
"Cinya."
Resal bowed. "You must forgive me. I've been away for some time. Where is Cinya, exactly?"
The brinna smirked. "It used to be in the center of the Tableland. Its people have been- relocated, shall we say- to the eastern coast of Kemiebeyst."
"That's a long journey from here."
"True."
Since the brinna didn't seem to understand, Resal came to the point. "This village is mostly women and children, and not in the best of health. Not all of them might survive a journey of more than ten thousand miles."
"What does that matter to us?"
"It matters to me," said a new voice.
Resal turned his head. Bari had apparently decided that she had to join in the defense of the village, or perhaps she hadn't really trusted him. She stood in the middle of the path, her golden skin paler than the moonlight, staring at the brinnai with obvious terror and equally obvious defiance.
"An alalori," said the brinna softly, and moved into Primal. "Lixle! Dal ny! Umanital!"
Traitor. Wicked one. Daughter of humans.
Bari bowed a little. "I deserve all those names," she said. "But these people didn't participate in the Sublimation. Please. I gave them my word that I would protect them. Don't make me a liar."
"Are you going to call on the power of your god?"
Bari closed her eyes. Sweat shone on her skin. Her hand closed on the glass sunburst.
"I would have to kill if I do that," she whispered. "I have never killed in my life. Please. Don't-"
"We don't need to listen to anything an alalori says." The brinna turned and nodded to her troops. "Kill the woman. Then make sure that we've rounded up all the humans. We don't want any escaping through the forest."
Resal blinked. They were really going to do it. They would kill Bari, if she stayed true to her ideals, or they would force her to betray those ideals and protect the humans by calling sunlight and transforming it to sunflame. She could do it, but she would no longer be a priestess of the Dawn Lord when it was done. Sarastaa would grant the weapon to protect innocents, but he would then turn away from the wielder, who could no longer, by definition, be innocent.
"You're putting her in an untenable situation," he told the lightning Elwen commander. "Forcing her to betray one thing or the other- the ideals of peace or her choice to protect the humans."
"Do you think that you can persuade us?"
"No," said Resal sadly. "I suppose that I can't."
He raised a hand.
The Stream came to him.
For a long moment, he was floating in the blue of the endless reality of existence, with stars and songs and emotions and everything else that comprised infinity around him. His mind could embrace it. He'd had practice. But the brinnai were there with him, at least in spirit, and totally unprepared.
They screamed.
Resal gathered them all up in one long sweep, notes of the song and lights of the Stream at once, and threw them elsewhere, as he had thrown the weeds that he was hoeing in the garden. He touched their minds on the way- he could not help but touch them- and saw that what Bari had feared was true. The brinnai did have permission to do as they liked. They could ravage the countryside, human villages and half-Elwens alike, and the Lord Herran would do nothing to stop them.
That was upsetting.
Resal turned, his mind skipping and speeding over the Stream. Most of the time, what he could learn was guesswork; he could touch the Stream, but it didn't obey him, any more than it obeyed anything else. But there was one light in the Stream that had long ago ascended into the awareness of most wilesai. They had marked him and then studied him as interesting, or left him alone.
The Lord Herran of Rowan.
Resal made contact with his mind. He felt a moment of startlement. He wasn't supposed to be able to touch another Elwen telepathically until he had been personally introduced to him. But Resal didn't care. Such ideas had nothing to do with reality as it was.
^I know that you know better, my lord,^ he said into the land Elwen's mind. ^You have a fine sense of balance. You protect humans yourself. And you don't sacrifice innocent lives to appease a lust for revenge.^
Herran reflected back more startlement, confusion, and a weariness so great that Resal's eyes filled with tears. The Lord of Rowan had made sacrifices in the war with the humans, and afterwards, because someone had to make them. Better that it be someone who had immense power and could at least win something in return for his sacrifices, than someone who didn't understand what was happening and never would.
^Very commendable,^ Resal told him. ^But enough blood has been spilled. Take back the brinnai, or I will come to Rowan.^
Herran started to respond, but Resal didn't want to hear excuses. He had felt the agreement resonate in the land Elwen's mind. Herran had thought that what he was doing was wrong almost from the beginning, but because his people and the brinnai had wanted it, he had agreed.
^No,^ said Resal. ^One Elwen is almost a thousand times more likely to be right than a whole people.^
^You know the odds that precisely?^ asked Herran.
^Yes.^
Herran agreed. The light in the Stream throbbed once, and then darkness and discoloration that Resal had barely realized was there flooded out of it. He opened his eyes and smiled.
A hand fell on his arm.
Resal turned, and saw Bari staring at him- again. "You didn't kill them, did you?" she asked. "I didn't feel them die."
"No. I just put them elsewhere."
"Where?"
Resal shrugged. "The Stream is a mingling of times and places- which makes sense, since it is all times and places. It's taken me all my life to understand present and future and past the way that you seem to. I can put them elsewhere, but I don't know where they'll come out."
Bari nodded slowly. Then she said, "Thank you. You are right. I would have had to betray something."
"It was unjust of them. You shouldn't be made to betray anything." Resal smiled at her, then yawned. "I usually need to sleep after this. If you don't mind-"
"Of course."
She almost seemed to guide him through the forest back to Alvai. That amused Resal. He knew where the trees and flowers were, or at least where they were right now. This close, he couldn't mistake them.
But he appreciated the gesture anyway.
________________________________________________
"Where are you going?"
Resal blinked. It wasn't so much the question that was unusual, but the hurt and outraged tone in Bari's voice as she asked it. He shrugged and settled his pack more firmly on his shoulders, calmly meeting her stare from the doorway of her home. "Onward."
"But-"
Resal watched in interest. He hadn't seen any alalori turn that shade of gold before. He hadn't known they could.
"Don't you want the thanks of the village?"
"Why? You've told me thanks already."
"Coin?"
Resal laughed. "If they have it, they need it more than I do."
"You won't stay and help teach the children about magic?"
Resal paused. The thought was intriguing. "I have full confidence that you could do it," he said.
Bari pressed as if she had heard the wavering in his voice. Perhaps she had. Even those who didn't know the Stream could be extraordinarily perceptive sometimes, Resal had found. "But it would help if you stayed," she said softly. "Kina and Petrin would be very disappointed if they found you gone. Already they've been coming to me and asking about the prayers I do. I think they want to learn what they can themselves, even if they never wield magic."
"That's encouraging," said Resal, watching her face. "But I am an infinity Elwen. We wander. I worship the stars and follow the moons, to quote a song I'm rather fond of."
"It wouldn't have to be forever," said Bari quickly. "It's almost winter. The harvest will be coming in soon. And then the snow will come. It's not pleasant to be traveling in the winter."
Resal grimaced. "I had almost forgotten. I was traveling in Gyrisond for the past decade, and there's no snow there."
Bari smiled. "Then the end of the winter, shall we say?"
Resal hesitated. "You think the villagers would accept me? The mothers, as well as the children?"
Bari nodded.
Resal gnawed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. "I don't know. It might take them some time. And I have traveled in the winter before, though not recently. I could get used to it again."
"There is- one thing I did not mention."
"What is that?"
Bari stared at the ground. "I- would be pleased if you would stay, as well," she said, so softly that Resal almost could not hear her.
Resal paused for a long moment, studying her bowed head and her trembling shoulders. The quivering of the Stream told him it was taking all her courage to ask this. "Ah," he said softly. "Ah, I had not thought of that. That is a little different, of course."
"Different enough to make you stay?" Bari looked back up at him, dawn-marked eyes blazing in the sunlight.
Resal thought about it again. Well- the end of the winter wasn't that far off. Five months. Fifteen dances, that was all. It wouldn't tear a hole in his heart if he stopped wandering for that long. He had stopped for three days to help Alvai and the villagers, after all.
And Bari.
"The end of the winter," he agreed, reaching out and clasping her hand. "After that, I make no promises."
Bari smiled at him, and Resal smiled back. What he had said yesterday was still true. She had a wonderful soul.
Yes. The end of the winter, at least. After that-
Resal shook his head, his smile widening. Could even the Stream know?
