Orphans - Kevin Killiany [41]
The arrow tip wavered not at all; how long could she hold her weapon drawn? Long enough. Hand away from his hilt, Naiar took a careful step backward.
Suddenly chimes pealed in the wind. A sphere of ice-flower blue bolted from beneath the dissel thicket to the left and behind the gnome, and rolled toward him with incredible speed.
The woman in the cave screamed a warning, but did not loose her arrow.
Naiar had a panicked instant to think he would have to kill his companion. Personal loyalty held no place against protecting a gnome who could breathe life into the stillborn.
For his part, the gnome gave a shout of what could have been joy even before he turned to meet the charge. Throwing wide his arms, he dropped to one knee as the ball burst open to become Naiar’s creature, its own arms thrown wide.
The two came together, not quite an embrace, but clearly not combat. Their voices mingled in rapid exchange, a crystal bell and gourd of gravel uttering syllables unintelligible to any but themselves.
Naiar stood for a moment watching, his own mind racing. He sensed that events had moved beyond the confines of his own personal Quest. He was certain this gnome was one of the party from his father’s House and had clearly been through some ordeal that had separated it from the others. If the others still lived. The time had come to set aside the protocols of tradition.
“Good mother,” he called. “I am Naiar, son of Nazent, heir to the Second House of the Tetrarchy. As our companions are clearly allies, I suggest we join forces to face whatever lies ahead.”
The screen of myyr vines parted and a woman of imposing height stepped into the open. Her right arm steadied a sling that held two small forms to her lower breasts; her left hand held an arrow.
“Well met, noble youth,” she said. “But now what shall you do for your proving quest?”
She grinned and Naiar shut his mouth. He had not meant for his realization that she’d never had a bow to be so comically clear.
CHAPTER
22
“The gnome does not eat,” Ahrhi said as she accepted a joint of the plith Naiar had roasted over the campfire. “I don’t think he knows how.”
“Not know how?”
“He offered me a bit of every plant in the hollow trying to find something I would eat.” She licked the grease running down her wrist. “Cut his hands to tatters making a dissel salad.”
Naiar laughed, nearly choking on his water.
“They do eat, I saw them at my father’s House,” he said. “Though only food they carried with them.”
“He has no pack.”
“Nor does—” Naiar broke off, embarrassed. “I’ve been calling it ‘Magical Beast,’ but now I think it’s neither.”
“A gnome,” she agreed.
“I think our food may be poison to them.”
“Then it is the smell of our cooking,” Ahrhi said, “and not our company that keeps them so far upwind.”
Tossing the bare bone back into the flames, the mother began adjusting her infants’ slings, shifting them from upper breasts to lower. Naiar averted his gaze, offering her a privacy she did not seem to need, and listened to her cooing to her children as he watched the two gnomes deep in their own conversation some distance away.
The Doctor gnome had used some unguents and potions from the purple case he wore at his chest on the…other gnome. It had seemed to gain some strength, and he was certain the sudden bursts of crystal raindrop sounds were laughter.
“I think this Doctor is one of the gnomes that supped at my father’s House,” he said at last. “But he does not seem to know me.”
“How many gnomes have you met?”
“Six.”
“You have met only six gnomes and are not sure he is one.” He could hear the grin in her voice. “How many People do you think he has met?”
“But People are different,” he protested.
She didn’t bother to answer.
Striver nickered.
Naiar saw that Ahrhi’s sword was in her hand as swiftly as his. The Doctor gnome was also on his feet, though he didn’t bother to draw his little knife. Instead he shooed the blue gnome into a dissel thicket, then stood between it and whatever