Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [110]
Liriel considered these words and discarded them as unimportant. Most likely Rashemi storytellers devoted their lives to this art, as did human bards or drow deathsingers. Fyodor had taken a warrior's path instead.
"I felt something leave when we entered. What was that?"
"Who can say?" Zofia responded. "The Bannik sometimes invites friends to the bathhouse. Forest spirits, water spirits, demons."
The drow took a cautious look over her shoulder. "This doesn't bother you?"
"Do you think that one spirit has the power to heal or to divine?" Zofia demanded. "The Bannik are powerful because they have friends. It is a lesson we Rashemi have learned well."
They closed the door and moved on to the main building. Zofia shook her head. "None but a witch may enter. No outlander is permitted within, not even one with a wychlaran's training. Even if you were who you claim to be, you could not pass this door." Zofia held up a hand, silencing Liriel. "That will keep. Come, I will show you to your hut."
The two females walked in silence down the long road leading to the village wall. Liriel's new home was surprisingly pleasant, a small hillock crowned with meadow grass still studded with summer flowers. Smoke rose from the small circle of stones, giving evidence of the dwelling within.
The single round room was heated by an iron stove. A large fur-covered bed filled one side, a small table and chairs the other. Pegs provided places for clothing. A washtub stood next to a shelf holding dishes and pots.
Zofia took down a samovar and set to work making tea. She also took from her bag a small loaf of bread, a salt cellar, and a white cloth.
"You will need these to befriend your domovoi. A house spirit," she explained, responding to Liriel's inquiring stare. "They are helpful and kind, and as long as you do not offend them they will protect your house and do some of your chores."
"What am I supposed to do with these things?"
"Wrap the bread and salt in the cloth and stand in your open doorway. Invite the domovoi in with kind and pleasant words, then leave the gift under the threshold stone. There is a special hollow there, of course."
"Of course," Liriel echoed, feeling slightly dazed by this recitation. "What does a domovoi look like?"
"Oh, don't expect to see it. You will hear it from time to time. It will hum when content and sigh or even groan when sad. Now, let us speak of you," she said. Her keen blue eyes regarded Liriel steadily. "Tell me why you have come to Rashemen."
"I came for Fyodor and to bring back the Windwalker."
"Nothing more?"
The drow hesitated, not sure how far to trust the witch. She decided that she had little choice. Without Zofia's patronage she would not have been allowed into this land at all.
"Another task was entrusted to me," she said slowly. "I was given a tapestry in which are imprisoned the spirits of slain elves. I promised to free them."
A light swept over Zofia's face. "Now I understand. You are a morrigan!"
Liriel lifted a skeptical brow. "I wasn't the last time I looked."
The witch chuckled. "A raven, then. A being who moves between two worlds, between starlight and shadows. It is your task to see lost spirits home."
This notion was entirely new to Liriel, and yet it had the uncomfortable fit of newfound truth. "Between starlight and shadows." Fyodor had used that very phrase in a story he told her.
Still, this morrigan business was too much to absorb.
"Who decided this?" she said heatedly.
Zofia shrugged. "Who knows? Is our fate written on the day of our birth, or do we choose our paths?"
"You tell me."
"Neither," the old woman said, "or perhaps both. The future is not ours to know."
"Fyodor has the Sight. He says you're an Oracle."
The witch inclined her head. "We see what might be, just as the fisherman sees the darkening clouds and knows that rain might fall. He also knows that a strong wind might come and blow the storm far from the Ashane, or that the song of the bheur-the