A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [170]
“Evandar!” he yelled. “Evandar, can you hear me!”
No one answered, no one came. Only the wind blew over the rain-soaked grass in its endless sigh.
It was some days before Aderyn discovered what had really killed Maer. He scried by every method he knew, consulted Nevyn and learned two new ones, invoked the Kings of the Elements and the Lords of the Wildlands both, assumed his body of light and journeyed long and hard through not only the etheric but various portions of the astral plane as well until, a few scraps of information at a time, he pieced together the story of the transformed sprite’s unwitting murder of the only thing she loved. Eventually, many weeks later, he found and confronted her among the hazel thicket by the joining of three streams.
He went there on an impulse so strong that he knew someone was sending him a message, whether the Lords of the Wildlands or the King of Water he wasn’t sure, but either way, he wasn’t disposed to ignore it. As he rode up, he saw her pacing back and forth by the stream, head down as if hunting for something. To avoid frightening her, he dismounted and walked the rest of the way. When she saw him, she snarled and swiped at him with one hand, curled into claws like a cat’s.
“I didn’t take Maer away.”
“You did! I saw you take him. You came with some of the elder brothers, and they wrapped him a blanket, and you all took him away.”
“His soul was already gone by then. He was dead. Do you know what dead means?”
She merely stared, then wept in a numb scatter of tears.
“Give him back.”
“There’s nothing to give back.”
“Yes, there is! You took him away. Where did you put him?”
Aderyn debated, then decided that he was desperate enough to bargain.
“I’ll show you his grave if you answer me three questions.”
“His what?”
“The place where we put his body. I warn you, though, that he can’t speak or move anymore.”
“I want to see him.”
“Then answer me the questions. First, who taught you how to speak?”
“She did. The goddess who helped me.”
“What did this goddess look like?”
“All sorts of things. She comes and goes and changes like I do.”
“Does she have a name?”
“A what?”
“A name. Like Maer. A word that belongs only to her.”
“Oh.” For a long moment she wrinkled her nose in thought. “Elessario. That’s her special word. Now show Maer to me. You promised, and I’ve answered all three.”
“So you have. Follow me, but I warn you, he’s all different now.”
With a rustle like grass in the wind she vanished, but her voice lingered briefly.
“Ride, and I’ll follow.”
As he rode back to the pretty spot in the canyon where they’d buried Maer (since Calonderiel had decided that his guest would have preferred the burial of his own people rather than a burning), Aderyn was considering strategies. Although he was afraid to openly contact the Lords of the Wildlands, apparently they’d been keeping an eye on him, because when he reached the grave, they were there, tall slender pillars of silver light, barely visible as a shimmering in the air. He felt rather than heard their thanks, knew wordlessly that they’d come to claim the sprite as one of their own so that they could heal her.
But she never came. All that day Aderyn and the lords waited, and all evening, too, until the last quarter moon rose to announce that it was midnight.
“She’s been too clever for us,” Aderyn remarked in thought. “I think she knows you’ll take her away.”
He could feel them agree in an exhalation of worry. One by one they winked out, like stars disappearing in the light of dawn, leaving Aderyn with the feeling that he wasn’t to trouble himself with the sprite any longer, that they would, one way or another, find a way to deal with her.
Maer, however, or, rather, the soul of the man who’d once been Maer, was another matter altogether. Nevyn agreed that his Wyrd might well have become tangled with things that were, at root, no affair of his. After all, the sprite had found him once before when he’d died and been reborn; now she had even more reason to search for him, her