He stopped himself just as he was thinking 'get over it.' She wasn't going to get over it. She wasn't ever going to 'get over it.' But he could take himself off so she could pretend she could. So this would be a good time to get out and see the sights. There were several hours of light left.
And who better to tell him about Sentarshadeen than the people who—so Idalia said—were exempt from all local customs? He wondered how hard it would be to find a kid around here.
Taking a last look around the disorder of the common room, Kellen went out, closing the front door carefully, and very quietly, behind him.
HE went back down the cliff footpath, to wander the twisting paths along the cliffside among the small houses. This time he saw a number of adult Elves going about their business (all of them ignored him, very politely), but he had no intention of approaching any of them. He was looking for someone quite different.
Idalia said there weren't a lot of Elf-kids. If I were a kid, and I didn't have anybody to play with, where would I go?
He'd been walking for about half an hour, Kellen judged, mostly upstream along the riverbed—there was a trickle along the very bottom of the bed, mostly for decoration, he guessed—when he saw the boy.
The Elf-child was playing by himself down in the muddiest part of the streambed, and just like any other child, mud had gotten all over his skin and his clothes. His black hair was cut short, just brushing his shoulders, and Kellen was amused to see that there seemed to be mud there too. In fact, with a little work, the kid could probably get the rocks dirty. He was concentrating intently on something between his feet. Kellen saw something flicker on the surface of the water, passing him where he stood—a tiny boat made of folded colored paper.
He walked over to where the kid was squatting in the water. The boy was wearing a kilt and vest, and sometime this morning they'd been cream-colored, Kellen guessed. Since then, they'd suffered about as much as you'd expect at the hands of an active five-year-old—at least, the Elf-boy looked about five. For all Kellen knew, he might be fifty.
'Hello,' Kellen said, and waited to see what would happen.
'I see—' The boy looked up and saw Kellen, and his black eyes widened in delight. 'I know what you are! You're a human!' the boy said delightedly, jumping to his feet and scattering the rest of his paper boats in his excitement.
'My name's Kellen,' Kellen said. 'I just got here a couple of hours ago, and I was looking for somebody who could show me around the city.'
'I could!' the boy said. 'My name's Sandalon, and I know where everything is! I'll show you.' He took Kellen's hand and began to lead him back along the river. 'You're hot,' he commented. 'And you're an awfully strange color. Are you feeling all right? Do all humans wear clothes like that all the time? Are you going to wear clothes like that while you're here, or are you going to wear proper clothes? We can start with the kilns, because they're firing today, and that's always educational, Nurse Lairamo says. Are your ears really round? Is it true that humans eat raw meat?'
Eventually Sandalon's questions slowed down enough for Kellen to be able to actually answer them, and ask a few as well—it seemed that Elves knew as little about humans as humans did about them, only they were too polite to say so, if Sandalon's innocent questions were anything to go by—and so Kellen learned about the firing kilns and the orchards, and pretty much everything Sandalon knew about Sentarshadeen: which was quite a bit, since no one hindered him and everyone looked out for him. Kellen found himself the target of sharp glances more than once, but since the boy was obviously enjoying himself in Kellen's company, nothing was said.
Kellen discovered that the cliff walls weren't as solid as they looked, either—there were canyons cut into them, which in turn led back into a whole deeper set of valleys, almost like a labyrinth. Kellen's woodscraft stood him in good stead now: if he'd come here directly from Armethalieh, he'd have been completely lost among all the twists and turns almost at once, but spending a season in Idalia's woods had taught him the skills to be able to find his way back to his starting place fairly easily.
'And this is where I live,' Sandalon said happily, pointing, after he'd spent most of the afternoon showing Kellen the high points of Sentarshadeen.
Kellen looked out across a meadow covered with short silvery grass. Set in its center was the largest Elven building Kellen had yet seen, a low, deep-eaved house built of silvery wood and pale stone. Age and strength radiated from it, as from an ancient living tree, and Kellen would not have been at all surprised to discover dryads living here.
'Come,' Sandalon said, pulling at Kellen's hand. 'I'll show you.'
Kellen followed him across the grass.
The portico floor was covered with an intricate design of slatted wood, and by the time Kellen and Sandalon reached the doors, the soles of Sandalon's sandals and Kellen's boots were clean and dry. Though he knew this must be a very grand house by Elven standards, there was no sense of things being huge just to make people feel insignificant. There were double doors, wide enough so that several people could enter at once, but the doors themselves were not the towering things they would be in Armethalieh. They were simply the proper size for their function, just as the house seemed to be the proper size for its function, whatever that might be.
