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By Root 818 0

when she woke of a morning. On an afternoon when a pale and lowering sun struggled to burn off the morning’s mist, she was swooping over a canyon when she saw three pure-white swans flapping along, legs dangling awkwardly, long necks bobbing in and out. Swans were so out of place in the grasslands that she darted after them, only to realize that they were as large as she was and thus no true birds at all. Since she knew of no dweomermasters who flew as swans, she followed when they circled down to land, splashing and bobbing, in a shallow backwater of the river below. She herself landed on the ground and hopped, suddenly clumsy, to the water’s edge. When they spoke, the words came directly to her mind without effort or sound, and wrapped in their dweomer, she found she could answer the same way.

“So,” the largest swan, who seemed to be male, remarked. “Our little sister can fly, can she?”

“Who ever would have thought it?” said the larger female. “Do you still have that arrow I gave you, girl?”

“Yes, of course. But how did you recognize me?”

On a ripple of amusement the swans flew up with a trail of real water splashes, then settled in a flurry of light on the ground nearby. All at once they were elven figures, and dressed in green clothing, rough tunics, leggings, and the younger woman had a short green cloak. To her horror Dallandra found herself in her own true form, but quite naked.

“Things seem much more difficult for you than for us.” The younger woman took off the cloak and tossed it to her. “Here. You look cold.”

Dallandra snapped the cloak out and wrapped it around her in one smooth gesture. She was sure that her face was scarlet.

“Thank you,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “Do you have a name?”

“Of course, but I’m not going to tell you. We’ve just met.”

“In my country it’s the custom to exchange names when you meet someone.”

“Foolish, very foolish,” the elder woman said. “I’d never do such a thing, and I suggest that you don’t, either, girl. Now, I want to ask you a question, and it’s a very important one, so listen carefully. Why do your people insist on using iron when you know we hate it?”

“Well, first off, why should we care whether or not you hate it?”

“Very good, answering a question with another one. I think you’re getting the hang of this. But I’ll give you an answer. Because we’re the Guardians. That’s why.”

“And if we stopped using iron, would you do something for us or help us in some way?”

“We did before, didn’t we?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t remember. I mean, that was years and years ago, and I wasn’t even alive then.”

This answer shocked them. In a confused outburst of sound, they looked back and forth at each other—and disappeared, taking the cloak with them. Dallandra threw a few choice curses into the void after them, then concentrated on the laborious task of changing back into bird-form. Once she was safely settled, she flew straight home. She had a lot of questions to ask of the older dweomermasters in the camp.

And yet no one seemed to know much about the Guardians, because no one had ever considered before that they might be real rather than part of some old folktale. That they were spirits rather than incarnate beings seemed obvious enough, but no one knew where their true home in the universe might be, not even Aderyn.

“You know, we have tales about beings much like these Guardians,” he remarked one afternoon. “My people must have met them somehow in their travels. But our lore about them is all bits and pieces, a tale here and there, much like yours is.”

“They insist that they belong to the People, and they seem to be bound to the same lands. And they’re more complex than planetary spirits or suchlike. They have faces and hearts—oh, that doesn’t make sense.”

“It does, truly. You mean they feel like real individuals.”

“Just that. But unformed or unfinished or suchlike. Oh, I don’t know! We’ll have to wait till you see them, too, and then we can puzzle out more. They’re fascinating, though.”

“They are that. I hope I get to meet them.”

Yet it seemed that