Chapter Thirteen
Through the verdant veil of the bed hangings, Moondance k'Treva watched the youngling sleep. The notes of the crystal flute spiraled through his soul and he let his heart fly with the music. A gentle tune this, for one who needed sleep and peaceful waking. He was himself tired from the long, unbroken concentration of Healing but, carried by the music, he did not feel his fatigue, and in any case he was born up on the light wings of fulfillment. This mind no longer burned. This soul had been cleansed of a great burden of suffering and for now the poor child need only sleep, in the peace of the crystal flute. Which, for a Healer, was enough.
There was still much to be done, and much uncertainty resting on the sleeper, but that would wait till another time.
Sleep now, young Vanyel. When it is time to wake, I will be here beside you.
* * *
"'Lendel."
Vanyel came gently awake with that name on his lips, as he had done so often in the past. Not immediately feeling his lover's presence, he reached for him lazily — if I'm not really awake yet I don't have to get up — and half opened his eyes.
Green. He had the strange, dreamlike sensation that he was in a tree. No, it was a bed — but a bed like he had never seen before. Branches arched up and over, supporting a canopy of huge fern fronds and on all sides draped down a cascade of green — fabric, gossamer thin and in varying shades, cut into overlapping leaf-shapes. The bed itself was wide and soft and covered with blankets of dark moss-green, thick as heavy velvet.
He was quite alone. Except that there was a gentle music winding from somewhere beyond the curtain of greenery, and music did not usually produce itself. Nor are beds usually made of trees — or trees of beds —
The music reminded him of something — a dream — of gentle voices and soothing colours. He felt like someone in a tale, one of his mother's ballads perhaps, in which the hero wakes in a strange and magical land. Then where's my True Love? And if this isn't a dream, where is 'Lendel?
The music spiraled upwards one last time and came to an end. There was a brief pause, and then a figure parted the green hangings of the bed and looked down at him.
Vanyel stared in undisguised amazement. I must be in a song. He had never seen anyone like this young man. His hair was longer than most ladies' and silver as any oldster and yet he was plainly not old. Blue eyes met Vanyel's, cool and thoughtful, seeming to see down into his very soul. His clothes — sleeveless tunic and breeches — were as green as the bedding and in one hand he carried a flute, carved of what looked to be opaque crystal.
The apparition cocked his head just slightly to the side and his mouth curled in a gentle smile at Vanyel's stare and it was then Van realised he couldn't hear the strange young man's thoughts. He could feel presence, but there was no barrage of unwanted emotion, no din of other people's mind's. He blinked in surprise, and remembered again the dream —
"Good morning." Perhaps seeing that Van showed no signs of doing anything other than stare, the young man spoke first. He spoke Valdamaran with a strange accent and his voice was pleasant — musical.
"W-what is this place?" Vanyel stammered — Oh terribly clever! "Who are you?"
"Ah," the young man's smile blossomed, and the blue of his thoughtful eyes seemed to lighten, "it is well. Better than I might have feared — it could easily have been 'who am I?' you asked me, young Vanyel. So. What is this place? This is the Vale of k'Treva in the Pelagir Hills, and before you ask, Wingsister Savil brought you to us. We are her longtime friends and she sought our aid in your healing. I am called Moondance and I am Tayledras, what you would call Hawkbrother. What is more, I am a Healer. As for a more specific answer to 'this place': this is my bedroom and that is my bed you are lying in." A teasing twinkle came into his eyes. "Starwind says it is a foolish piece of conceit, but I think that this is only because he did not think of it first."
Vanyel blinked in bewilderment, his mind struggling to absorb the rush of information.
"My apologies, young Vanyel, I go too fast," Moondance said. "Simple things first then: do you wish for food or drink? A bath?"
But Van's mind seemed to have finally caught up with the situation and it was something else entirely that jumped to the fore.
"Where's 'Lendel?" And then he blushed, to think what he had just revealed in that blurted demand. He looked away, not wanting to see the disgust or anger that was sure to cloud those clear blue eyes.
"Of course." Moondance's voice was graver, but showed no sign of either anger or disgust. Vanyel glanced up, cautiously as if still half-expecting some blow.
"He too required healing but of a different kind, and he woke some time before you. Therefore he has been made welcome in an untenanted ekele."
"Then he's here — in this Vale, too?"
"Indeed."
"'Lendel needed healing? Is he all right?" Van uncoiled slightly despite himself and the words came flooding from him — Why isn't he here? — Of course he isn't all right — Gala — wait a moment, Yfandes —I have a Companion —
:Chosen.:
He had reached out with his mind without even thinking and found the presence, the warm, definite and above all, loving presence of the Companion, his Companion.
:I am here, Chosen. Not far away.:
Her voice did not hurt. Again he was aware that he could still feel those places in his mind that had burned, but they no longer hurt him: he had grown so accustomed to the pain. Slowly he felt out, stretching out his senses like he might stretch his fingers after a difficult piece of music — carefully, testing.
He sensed presences — not thoughts: his new barriers shielded him and he no longer had any unbalancing of what was him and what was other. He could Feel the veiled power of the Hawkbrother beside the bed, and the distinctive aura of Yfandes and another Companion — Kellan — Savil is here somewhere — Yes, that must be her, and another — As he carefully thinned his mental barriers, he caught the 'feel' of her mind and sensed others, many others. Without thought, without really knowing how, he picked out one that 'felt' right and that drew his mind as inexorably as gravity —
:'Lendel?:
He heard no reply. He sensed shields hard as ice here and could touch nothing beyond. An ache grew in him at being shut out, excluded, and yet it was more than that — as if a darkness from beyond himself was drawing him in —
"Vanyel."
The voice pulled him abruptly back to the green bed. He blinked at the young man who was now sitting opposite him, leaning forward slightly, one hand resting across his knee, the other still holding the crystal flute.
"What —?"
"Vanyel, listen to me—" Moondance's eyes were grave and concerned — "you are Healed but there is still much for you to learn before your power will be fully under your control. Likewise, I have Healed the body of your shay'kreth'ashke, but there is still a darkness in his spirit."
One word jumped out at Van and in his surprise he hardly heard the rest. "Ashke?"
"Indeed. Shay'kreth'ashke means something like 'beloved of the soul' — what you would term 'lifebonded'."
Van just stared, again lost for words. Lifebond — 'Lendel and I — It was a revelation, and yet at the same time it meant nothing, was only a confirmation of what they had already known. Van knew next to nothing about such bonds except that they were unbreakable.
"I love you because you're Vanyel, and we belong together —"
"Van, I won't hurt you. Not for any reason."
A sense of awe washed over him that everything Tylendel had said to him was after all nothing but truth. And suddenly he longed for nothing but his lover's arms, to tell him that, whatever else, they were together.
"Please," he said, quietly meeting the other's gaze, "can I see him?"
Moondance paused for a moment and the silence enveloped the strange bedchamber. "I will tell you a thing," he said eventually. "Because I would not wish you to be hurt. There is a darkness in the mind of your shay'kreth'ashke — not evil — but a darkness that is born of loss and guilt and self-doubt. I do not doubt that if you were to go to him now, you could ease this hurt, but it would not go away. Next time it surfaced he would look to you again to dispel the darkness, and the next time, and the next, but because it never truly went away it would poison the love between you and darkness would creep into both your souls. Tylendel must overcome this himself and for that reason, no, you may not see him now."
Vanyel opened his mouth to object, but suddenly Moondance's head came up as if listening. He looked off into the distance with unfocused eyes andVanyel thought he sensed some exchange just out of his hearing. Then the young man turned back to Vanyel with an air of agitation.
"Forgive me, I must leave you. There is trouble and I must deal with it." He stood. "But I will not leave you untended at least. Do you wish for food, or to bathe first?"
Van, his still muddled thoughts abruptly sent off in another direction by this change, was suddenly aware that he was not only hungry but desperate to be clean. Peacock, he could almost hear Tylendel teasing him. "Bath," he said firmly just as his stomach gave the opposite answer.
Moondance smiled. "Then we shall remedy both at the same time. Come." He held out a hand to help Vanyel from the bed and Van took it tentatively, only to draw back quickly as he realised another thing about himself — under the blankets he was completely naked.
Moondance looked amused. "So modest? Who do you think undressed you and tended you these past days? 'Twas not the man in the wind, I think."
But he was already reaching up and detaching something from among the green hangings, that he tossed down onto the blankets. The robe was, thankfully, more substantial than the gossamer bed-hangings and Moondance carefully turned his back so that Vanyel could scramble from the bed and pull the soft material round himself.
The movement proved a little too precipitous and the room became suddenly uncertain around him while a soft humming filled his ears. But the Tayledras was at his side immediately and with a cool touch on his brow, dispelled the dizziness.
"Come now," he said encouragingly, holding out his hands and stepping back, inviting Vanyel to come to him. "You must learn to walk again, young Vanyel. One step — yes. Keep your eyes on me — one step at a time."
Thus they crossed the strange room, although Van could not spare the attention from the absolute concentration necessary for walking to look around him. The Tayledras did not hold him but stayed steadily one step ahead, his clear blue eyes never shifting. He showed none of his earlier agitation, and did not hurry Van at all, although the journey seemed to take years to accomplish. Which was a good thing, because Van thought that if he had tried to go any faster he would probably have fallen flat on his nose.
Walking required all his attention and he was relieved at the end, and after crossing some sort of threshold without incident, to sink down onto the smooth stone ledge that Moondance guided him to.
"How long?" he asked, too tired to even try and work it out in his head. "How long have I been here?"
"A week you have been with us," Moondance answered him, "but for two more before that you have lain abed and drugged. It will take a while for your body to relearn such things as walking, and proper food."
"Three weeks!" Van found that he hadn't even considered time in a long while, and his memories of the past weeks were vague.
But the Tayledras was again in a hurry and did not answer his surprise. "Look about you — here is the bath." Vanyel looked up and saw that the ledge rimmed a raised pool full of steaming hot water. While deep enough for bathing it was not very wide. Raised slightly above it, another pool spilled water over a lip into the first and this one was both larger and deeper. Both pools were smooth but seemed natural features with rock sides and sandy bottoms. There was a faintly metallic tang in the air.
"See — this the pool for washing," Moondance continued his instruction. "Here is soap. This is the pool for resting when you are finished. Food will come soon, and clothing for when you are done. Starwind and your aunt will be here to see you shortly. Savil has been anxious to see you up and about again."
He hesitated, looking away. When he spoke again his words were somewhat hesitant. "There is a thing I wish to say to you. A thing for you to think upon. In Healing you I have shared your thoughts, I know your mind in a way none other can, except perhaps your shay'kreth'ashke. It is something that I have experienced for myself — that one knows your deepest troubles without you having to voice them. It can be both a discomfort and a relief.
"Despite your love — which I do not think any force could shake — there is still in you a fear and a shame for what you are. You have heard too much from small-minded and constricted men, so I would speak to you as one who is also shay'a'chern, who loves and has learned that there should be nothing but joy in such a bond."
Now he turned back, looking straight into Van's eyes with the intensity of a hawk.
"This I have learned. There can be no shame in loving. Where there is love, the form matters not. Where there is love, the gods are pleased."
And, bending, he kissed Vanyel full on the mouth.
"You are most welcome, young Vanyel."
Then he was gone in a swift movement of silver and green.
Vanyel, sitting in wide eyed confusion, thought he sensed a light touch of surprised indignation, which was answered by the gentle bubbling of green-gold laughter.
* * *
AN Acknowledgement: I have used something directly from Magic's Pawn (1991:274-5) because I simply couldn't better it. Obviously, the two lines that Van remembers Tylendel saying are from the book as well. Thank you Ms Lackey (please don't sue me!).