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By Root 681 0

they were avoiding him; indeed, they came to Dallandra only when she was alone. When she was out riding, she would see them only from a distance. Usually she’d hear strange music, turn to look, and see one of their processions jogging along at a great distance across the grasslands. Whenever she tried to gallop and catch them, they simply disappeared. When she was flying in the bird-form, though, they would often come as swans or ospreys to fly along with her, usually without sharing a word or thought. Finally it occurred to her that they shunned her in her real form because she generally carried iron with her —a knife at her belt, the bit in her horse’s bridle, or the bars in her stirrups.

One cold but sunny day she decided to ride out bareback with only a rope halter to guide her horse, and she left her knives at home. Sure enough, as soon as she was well out of sight of the camp, the two women and their male companion appeared, riding milk-white horses with rusty-red ears.

“So,” the elder woman remarked. “You’ve left your demon metal behind.”

“Well, yes, but I honestly don’t understand why you hate it so much.”

The man frowned in thought. Although his face was both exceptionally handsome and elven, his hair was as yellow as a daffodil, his lips were a sour-cherry red, and his eyes were sky blue—colors as artificial as the tent paints that the artisans ground out of earths and barks.

“We don’t understand, either,” he said at last. “Or we’d tell you outright. Listen, girl, see if you can solve the puzzle for us. When there’s iron around we can’t come through to your world properly. We swell and shift and suffer. It hurts, I tell you.”

“Through to our world? And where’s your world, then?”

“Far away and over the sky and under the hill,” the young woman said, and eagerly, leaning forward in her saddle. “Would you like to see?”

Dallandra felt a danger warning like a slap across the face.

“Someday maybe, but I’ve got to get home now and tend my herds.”

She swung her horse’s head around, kicked him mercilessly, and galloped away while their laughter howled round her head and seemed to linger in her mind for a long, long time.

Thanks to the male Guardian’s frankness, Aderyn could unravel a bit of the puzzle, or rather, his old master, whom Aderyn contacted through the fire, did the unraveling when Aderyn discussed the information with him.

“He says they must be halfway between spirits and us,” Aderyn reported. “The bodies we see are really just etheric substance, come through to the physical, and not flesh at all. They must be able to cast a powerful glamour over themselves as well to change their appearance and all, but Nevyn says that there has to be some sort of real substance for them to work with. Do you know what a lodestone is?”

“I don’t.”

“It’s a thing Bardek merchants invented. They take an iron needle and do somewhat to it so that it soaks up an excess of aethyr. I don’t know what they do—the sailing guilds keep it secret, you see. When they’re done with it, it attracts tiny iron filings—oh, it’s a strange thing to watch, because the filings cling to the needle like hairs on a cat! But the important thing is, after they’ve done this, one end of the needle always points south. They use it to navigate.”

“By the Dark Sun herself! A wonder indeed! But what does this have to do with the Guardians?”

“Well, Nevyn says that iron would soak up aethyr from their presence and become much like a lodestone. Then it would either attract or repel the etheric substance they’re made of.”

“Making them shrink or swell, just like that fellow said.”

“Just so. As to their true home, it might lie on the etheric, but they’re not part of the Wildfolk. Then again, Nevyn says it might lie in some part of the universe that we don’t even know about.”

“And a great lot of help that is! But it doesn’t matter where they belong. What counts is what they want with us. They claim they’ve served the People in the past. Do you think they’re like your Lords of Light, the Great Ones? I mean, souls like us who’ve gone on before us to the