move to give the boy support in any way, except the one time Vanyel stumbled and nearly fell. Then Moondance caught him; held him until he could find his balance again, and only when Vanyel was standing firmly again did he draw away.
Vanyel was vaguely aware that they had crossed a threshold into another room, but just walking was costing him so much sweating, concentrated effort he didn't dare look around any. It seemed to take years before Moondance stopped, caught his elbow, and guided him to a seat on a smooth rock ledge that rimmed a raised pool of water so hot that it steamed.
'Now, look about you.' Moondance waved at the pool and the rest of the room. 'This is the pool for washing. Here is soap. When you are clean, go there, the pool for resting.'
Though the pool Vanyel was sitting beside was deep, it was quite small. Next to the 'pool for washing' was another, much larger, much deeper, and slightly above it, with an opening in the side that spilled hot water down into this pool. Both pools looked natural; rock-sided and sandy-bottomed.
'I think even weak as you are, you shall be able to find your way there. I shall return with food and drink.' The young man hesitated a moment - then with the swiftness of a stooping hawk, leaned over and kissed Vanyel full on the lips. 'You are very welcome, young Vanyel,' he said, before Vanyel had a chance to get over his surprise. 'We are pleased to have you, Starwind and I, and not just for the sake of Wingsister Savil.'
He vanished before Vanyel had a chance to react.
Vanyel found that if he moved slowly and carefully he didn't exhaust himself. He shed the robe and eased himself into the water with a sigh, and soaped and rinsed until he finally felt clean again. His pool emptied itself over the side and down a channel in the floor - and where the water went from there he couldn't say. He had figured by now that this was some kind of hot spring, which accounted for the metallic tang in the air.
With Moondance gone, he had a chance to get a good look around while trying to sort himself out. There didn't appear to be any 'doors' as such in this dwelling; just doorways. This bathing room was multileveled; highest level was the 'pool for resting' which cascaded to the next level and the 'pool for washing,' which in turn was above the 'floor' and the channel carrying the water away that was cut into it. There were no windows in the walls of natural rock; the whole was lit by a skylight taking up the entire ceiling, and there were green and flowering plants and ferns standing and hanging everywhere. There was only one entrance into this room - that led back to the bedroom, also rock-walled and roofed with a skylight, from what Vanyel could see of it.
The ledge between the pools was not that high, though it took far more of Vanyel's strength to get over it than he would have believed. Once in the larger pool he discovered that his surmise was right; crystalline hot water bubbled up from the sand in the center of the pool; someone had improved on nature by forming the rock of the pool sides below the waterline into smooth benches.
It was wonderful; the water was about as hot as was comfortable, and was forcing him to relax whether or not he wanted to. He closed his eyes and sat back, deliberately thinking of absolutely nothing, and only opened them again when he heard light footsteps crossing the stone floor below him.
It was, as he expected, Moondance, who had brought with him an earthenware beaker of what proved to be cider and a plate of sliced bread and cheeses and fruit.
'Eat lightly,' the young man warned, climbing to Vanyel's level and setting his burdens down on the rim of the pool at Vanyel's right hand. 'You have been three weeks without true food, and spent more than one of those days drugged.'
'Three weeks?'
Moondance shrugged. 'You needed Healing, of a kind your good Healer Andrel could not give you. I think perhaps no Healer among your folk could have given you such Healing; they know nothing of the Healing of hurts caused by magic, only of illness and wounding. That is a study only a few have made, and most of those few Tayledras. Eat, young Vanyel. There are herbs in the bread and the drink to strengthen you.'
'Where - where is Savil?' he asked, suddenly a little worried at being alone with a stranger.
'With Starwind. She was very weary, both in body and in soul. This - thing that has happened. It has been a deep grief to her, as well to you. Her heart is as sore, I think. They are old friends, my shay'kreth'ashke and Savil, and there are no secrets between them, and much love. She has need of such love. Perhaps more than you, for she has had no one to lend her support.'
Vanyel had looked up at him sharply at that - with the word ashke striking him with the force of a cold slap in the face, making his heart pound painfully.
Moondance looked down at him, something speculative in his glance. He weighed Vanyel for a moment, then cleared his throat and looked away, deliberately. 'I have a thing to say to you, a thing I wish you to think upon.'
Vanyel put down his cider, and waited, apprehensively, to hear the rest.
'I have shared your thoughts; I know more of you than anyone, except, perhaps, your shay'kreth'ashke.'
Moondance changed his position so that he was sitting with his back to the pool, leaning his weight against his hands and staring up at the clouds visible through the skylight. He was being very careful not to look at Vanyel.
'As you have guessed from my words,' he said, 'I am shay'a'chern. As is Starwind. As you.' Now he gave Vanyel a very brief, sidelong glance. 'I am a Healer-Adept and I Heal more than people - I Heal places. I know the natural world as only one who wishes to restore it to its rightful balances can. This is the thing I wish to tell you; in all the world, there are more creatures than just man that make lifetime matings. Among them, some of the noblest - wolves, swans, geese, the great raptors-all creatures man could do worse than emulate, in many, many ways. And with all of them, all, there are those pairings, from time to time, within the same gender. Not often, but not unheard of either.'
Vanyel found himself unable to move, and unable to anticipate the direction this was taking.
Now Moondance dropped his eyes to catch and hold Vanyel's in a joining of glances and wills that was unbreakable.
'There is in you a fear, a shame, placed there by your own doubts and the thoughts of one who knew no better. I tell you to think on this: the shay 'a 'chern pairing occurs in nature. How then, 'unnatural'? Usual, no; and not desirable for the species, else it would die out for lack of offspring. But not unnatural. The beasts of the fields are innocent as man can never be, who has the knowledge of good and evil and the choice between, and they do not cast out of their ranks the shay 'a 'chern. There was between you and your shay 'kreth 'ashke much love - only
