"Sedges, reeds, catkins, marginal plants—and water lilies. If we put in just a few clumps, the marginals will spread by themselves, but the lilies all died, and since the pond's in direct sunlight, the fish will need something for shade, and to give them protection from predators. We'll have to get some help to find and plant lily bulbs. In the meantime, maybe we can find some floating plants to shade the fish. The frogs and turtles can find their own way back," she added darkly. "I'm not catching frogs, even with selkie help. You can spend days chasing frogs," she said, in a voice that seemed to come out of hard-won experience.
"Selkies?" Kellen asked, fascinated. That was a new name—he wondered just what kind of creature belonged to it.
"Selkies," Idalia confirmed. "Selkies and undines live in the stream— and otters, too, of course, though they're not Otherfolk. In the woods you'll find dryads of various species, not just the apple-dryads you found the other day."
She gave him a sidelong glance, and he felt his cheeks growing warm.
"That's what Shalkan said," he replied, hoping she hadn't noticed his blushes.
"Well, they're by no means the only thing that lives in the forest. Pixies, fairies, brownies, and fauns—they're very shy, so I'm hoping they'll come out when they see I'm with you. It can take a long time to meet everything that lives here—some folk only come out at night, some sleep through the summer. Some you wouldn't want to meet, like duergar and goblins and trolls, though I don't think any of them have stayed around here. They were pushed out of the settled lands by the Great War, and even after all this time, I don't think they'd be foolish enough to come back."
"What was the Great War?" Kellen asked, at the same time Idalia said:
"Oh—look!"
Kellen looked where she was pointing. A butterfly—no, a hummingbird. But it glowed, with a light softer than a firefly, though still bright enough to be visible even at midday, as it hovered among a bank of wild-flowers.
"A pixie," Idalia said in a quiet voice. "Some people think they're fairies, but they're not."
As Kellen watched, the first tiny glowing figure was joined by three more. He blinked. Was that a—a humanlike body attached to those rainbow wings? They hovered among the flowers for a moment, then darted off. Idalia sighed happily. "I'm glad they're still here. There was a bad storm earlier this year, before you came, and I was afraid their nest had been destroyed. They make a kind of honey that I use in some of my medicines—it puts the patient right to sleep. I wouldn't want to use it in my breakfast tea, though."
"Can you talk to them?" Kellen asked, fascinated.
"With patience and practice," Idalia said, moving on.
As they walked, she pointed out other landmarks, including another tiny door like the one he'd seen before. It was, Idalia explained, the door to a brownie's house. She didn't know much about them, as they were terribly reclusive, but they seemed to live very much as humans did, in homes that were miniature copies of human dwellings—except for being built into the bases of oak trees. According to Idalia, a long time ago they had lived with humans, doing household tasks in exchange for food, but both of them found that hard to imagine.
He wanted to ask Idalia about Demons, since she seemed to be in such an expansive mood. In Armethalieh, they'd always been a nursery tale to scare little kids into behaving. But then Lycaelon had spoken of the Demons as if they'd once walked the streets of Armethalieh and might be back at any moment. And then there were the dreams. The Demons in Kellen's dreams were not very much like the Demons that were whispered about to frighten children into good behavior. The creatures in his nightmares were to those bogeymen as a sparrow was to an eagle. Since having those fever-dreams, Kellen was disinclined to scoff at the notion of Demons.
If Lycaelon had been lying in a last-ditch attempt to scare Kellen into submission, Idalia would tell him the truth, he knew. But somehow it had never seemed to be the right time to bring the subject up. But Kellen was starting to think there was never going to be a perfect time, and today seemed better than most.
He'd just opened his mouth to say something when he heard the sound of heavy hooved feet coming toward them. He stopped, but Idalia didn't seem at all concerned. She continued walking forward.
A female Centaur appeared on the path before them, a set of panniers slung across her back.
Like Cormo, she had a broad, heavy-boned, swarthy face and black eyes, but there all resemblance ended. Her chestnut hair was neat and combed, braided and held in place with a set of elaborately carved wooden combs. She wore a pleated linen shirt with bright woolen embroidery along the low-cut bodice and sleeves, and her tail was braided with bright ribbons.
There was a necklace of the sort called "beggar-beads" in Armethalieh about her neck—a long necklace of multicolored glass and stone beads, no two alike, looped several times around her throat and dropped into the cleft between her heavy breasts. Under the panniers, she had a colorful hand-woven wool blanket with heavy fringes flung over her haunches.
"Merana!" Idalia said cheerfully. "How good to see you! Did you see? The pixies are back!"
The Centauress smiled. "Indeed I did, Idalia—I'm going to their tree now to trade for dream-honey…"
Her gaze traveled past Idalia to Kellen and she regarded him with frank—and open—admiration. It might be difficult to judge Centaur ages, but Kellen got the feeling that she wasn't very much older than he was.
"So… this is Kellen. We've heard rumors about him, Idalia, as I'm sure you figured. Tell me, when are you coming to Merryvale again—and bringing your handsome brother?" Merana smiled and licked her lips.
Kellen blushed hotly. Centaur or no, she made him think things he knew very well he ought not to be thinking, not with the promises he'd made to Shalkan! And the more he tried to untangle his thoughts and make them travel in chaste and continent directions, the more lurid they became, until all he could do was stare at his feet and hope he was struck by lightning. Soon.
To his relief, Idalia laughed and walked up to Merana, linking arms with her and strolling with her ahead of Kellen—he could hear the two of them talking as they headed up the trail, and only hoped they weren't talking about him. It was bad enough that Shalkan had told the dryads about his vow—if he was going to have to tell every female he met about it for the next four seasons, well, he didn't think he could bear it.
I'll go back to the cabin. I'll lock myself in the bedroom, hide under the bed, and Idalia can feed me through the window for the next thirteen moonturns, that's all. Or I'll find a deserted mountaintop where nobody goes and live there, he told himself desperately.
A few minutes later, Idalia was back.
"She's an awful tease, isn't she?" Idalia said, winking. "She's got all the boys in the village chasing after her—frankly, I don't see how she has the time to flirt with all of them, but she does. She's the apprentice to the village Healer—plenty of work there, between bringing babies— human and livestock both—and setting bones. But I saw she was embarrassing you, so I figured I'd give her a little gossip, then get rid of her. All I had to do was remind her that Master Eliron would be wondering what took her so long to send her on her way."
"Thanks," Kellen mumbled, still flustered. "I guess this vow isn't going to be as simple to keep as I'd thought."
"That's sort of the nature of them," Idalia agreed gravely. "Come on. We'd better go looking for those plants."
Catkins were easy enough to find, and Idalia assured him they only needed one or two clumps, since the plants would spread quickly to take over their new home. While she gathered the fat roots with their swordlike leaves and their trailing root stems, Kellen dug out a few clumps of grass and reeds, digging deep to make sure he got most of their roots. And they were lucky; in a little pond they found enough water-cabbage that it covered the entire surface; Idalia quickly pulled in plenty of the leaf clumps with their trailing bundles of hairy roots, heaping them carefully in her basket. Armed with their bounty, they returned again to the pond.
"Just about full enough to stock," Idalia decided, floating the water-cabbage out into the center of the pond. They'd quickly begin to "calve," sending babies out on shoots that would break off when the baby got big enough, and naturalize in their new home.
Kellen was left with the muddier task of planting the reed bundles, and once he was done, felt his labors had earned him a question or two.
"Idalia," he began hesitantly, "I've been meaning to ask you. You talk about the Great War, something I've never heard of, and the Otherfolk that were driven out of the settled lands by it. Those creatures… does that include… Demons?"
"Hush!" Idalia said fiercely, rounding on him. "Never mention them here!"
"I— But—" Her sudden vehemence took him by surprise. "You don't mean you believe in them, do you?" he said. Suddenly, once again, such a belief seemed so childish, so unreasonable. Demons were things for nursery shadows and wondertales, not the bright light of the forest.
"Of course I do," Idalia said in a low voice, taking a step toward him. "They're real. Kellen—"
"They are!" an aged voice whispered fearfully. "Oh! Terrible real, they are!"
Crouched among the bushes at the edge of the trees was one of the Otherfolk. From Idalia's references, and his own studies, Kellen guessed it to be a faun. It was a creature about the size of a two-year-old child, humanlike to the waist, but with a goat's haunches. Its pointed ears were long and hairy, and goat horns grew from its brow, curling back over its skull. A small neat beard edged its jaw, adding to the goatish appearance. Unlike the Centaurs, whom Kellen could imagine to be very civilized despite their hooves and tails, the faun wore no clothes, and seemed far closer to the wild creatures of the forest than it did to the forest's more civilized and humanlike inhabitants.
Though he had no real experience with the races of the Otherfolk, even Kellen could see that the faun was very, very old. Its curling horns were as dark as winter leaves, and its hair and pelt were streaked with grey. Its face was as withered and dark as an old apple, and long ago it had been terribly injured—one eye was gone, leaving a web of white scars behind, and the faun's shaggy haunches were dappled with white scars, relics of terrible wounds.
And it was so frightened that it trembled all over, so frightened that Kellen could hardly believe that it was still standing there, speaking to them. The horror in its single, wide eye sent a chill down Kellen's spine, and out of what depths of its soul the faun found the courage to remain and warn them, Kellen could not imagine.
"Never speak of Them," the faun begged, quivering in terror. "Never speak of Them—never! Or They will come here, where it is safe, and pleasant, and turn it into—I dare not say!" Having frightened itself thoroughly, the old faun turned and ran, vanishing into the undergrowth as if it burrowed its way into it.
Idalia sighed, watching him go. "You see? Poor old thing. He came over the mountains years ago—long before I settled here. Something terrible must have happened to him there, but Piter never talks about it. I wish I could heal him—but he would have to ask, and he never has. I think he's afraid of hurting me—if I healed him, I'd find out how he was hurt, you see, and I would be as terrified as he is—or so he believes." She sighed again. "Poor creature, to be so afraid. Every year I wonder if this winter will be his last."
She turned away and began assembling their packs, but Kellen kept staring in the direction Piter had fled. The faun's terror had been so real that Kellen felt his own heart beat faster in response, and for the first time in a long time the memories of his fever-dreams were sharp and urgent.
"Can we—talk about this?" he asked his sister timidly.
"Definitely. But later." She cast a look over her shoulder, as if to make sure they weren't still being overheard. "Later, when it's—safer."
And it did not escape Kellen's attention that she said "safer," not "safe."
Demons were real. Lycaelon Tavadon hadn't lied.