A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [166]
“Tell me,” Calonderiel remarked. “If you do go back with Ganno, what’ll you do then?”
After six weeks among friends, the idea of riding the long road again looked less appealing than it had in the heart of his mourning.
“Ah well, go back to Aberwyn and tell Gwerbret Pertyc he was right after all.”
“And then sit around in his stone tent ail winter long?”
“I catch your drift, all right. Well and good, then. I’ll stay with you, if you’ll have me.”
“Naught I’d like more.”
At that time Aderyn’s alar consisted of himself and his son, the banadar, his warband of twenty and their families and tents, and a dozen other families as well, all of them, of course, owning flocks and herds. With so large a group they needed a winter campground to themselves and finally found one in a deep canyon about two miles from the sea. As usual, they set up the tents along the riverbank, but the herds would graze at the canyon’s rim. Since Calonderiel’s current woman friend rode off in a huff soon after they arrived (his women tended to come and go as frequently and as fast as the Wildfolk), Maer moved into his tent with him. Maer insisted on taking his turn at riding herd; he may have been a guest, but he disliked eating someone’s food and doing nothing in return. When he wasn’t on watch, and on the increasingly infrequent sunny days, he would often go riding, climbing out of the canyon, then letting his horse amble across the grasslands for aimless hours.
It was on one of these solitary rides that he saw the sprite again, not that he recognized her at first. On a sunny morning he came to clump of hazels standing where three streams joined to make a proper river. Since his horse was thirsty, he dismounted, slacked its bit, and let it drink while he looked idly around. Sitting among the trees was an elven woman, dressed in a long tunic, or so he thought at first.
“Greetings.” He trotted out one of his few Elvish words, then switched to Deverrian. “Am I disturbing you?”
With a shake of her head and a toss of waist-length blue hair, she stood up and took a few steps toward him. Her skin was a deadly sort of pale, but otherwise she was very beautiful, with enormous blue eyes and a full, soft mouth. When she smiled, her teeth seemed on the sharp side, but they were white and no longer pointed. He was intrigued enough to drop the horse’s reins and go to meet her. Close up, she smelled of roses.
“Maer?” she said.
“How do you know my name?”
“I’ve known you for ever so long. She said you wouldn’t recognize me, though. I guess you don’t.”
“I don’t, truly. She? Who’s she?”
“Just she. A goddess.” She paused for a slow seductive smile. “I can say words now. I love you, Maer.”
It was her remark about the words that made him recognize his blue sprite, somehow transformed. With a little yelp he stepped back.
“What’s wrong? I’m a real woman now.”
“Not by half you are!”
Her eyes flooded tears. Maer turned and ran for his horse, but as he was mounting, he could hear her sobbing. He was just frightened enough to keep riding, but her tears echoed in his memory and hurt. He knew what it was like to lose a beloved, didn’t he? The poor little thing, he would think. Trying to turn herself into a woman to please me! It was grotesque, really, and embarrassing as well as frightening—or so he saw it. As he did some hard thinking on the ride home, he decided that this mysterious “she” couldn’t possibly be a real goddess. Most likely she was just another member of the Wildfolk, unless she was something far worse. Like everyone else he knew, Maer believed in all kinds of spirits and ghosts, off in the Otherlands somewhere, who could at certain ill-omened times come through to his world. Meeting one was geis, and bad luck, and so many other awful things that he refused to tell anyone about his experience out of the real and honest fear that everyone would shun him from then on.
That night he fell into an uneasy