Owlflight

volunteering to act as a dishwasher, and even more surprising, found himself looking forward to the task. At least now he would be able to accomplish something useful here!

It was so odd, though - feeling an urgent need to be useful.

“So - what’s a hertasi, anyway?” he asked Snowfire around a mouthful of bread.

“They are, so we believe, one of the creations of that same great mage who ended the Mage Wars,” Snowfire replied. “As you saw, they are descended from lizards, and they share many characteristics with lizards. Cold sends them into a stupor, and extreme cold could kill or injure them very badly. They act, more or less, as our helpers; they cook and clean for us, make clothing, act as the assistants for artisans - when they are not, themselves, artisans as well. In return, we give them the protection of our Vales and scouts and things that they need. They tend to live in colonies, although they take single mates. They are one of the five nonhuman races that we Tayledras associate and work with.”

“Five?” Darian could hardly believe it. “There are five kinds of - of - things that you have around your Vales?”

“As equal partners and helpers and not always in the Vales. The tervardi, or Bird-people, the kyree, or Fur-brothers, and the dyheli, or Straight-horns, usually live outside our Vales. The hertasi and the gryphons in our Vales entwine their lives with ours; the others live entirely separate lives from ours, and only become partners with us where there are specific tasks that are better done with all our peoples.” Snowfire was so matter-of-fact about this - as if he were telling Darian how the Hawkbrothers arranged to get things from traders, or worked with the Valdemaran Guard! Darian found his head swimming. First, two-legged, intelligent lizards, and now this!

“In fact,” Snowfire was continuing, “we have dyheli with us as well as hertasi on this journey. They have volunteered, in token of their separate alliance with Valdemar, to act as our mounts and burden bearers. Selenay has offered, in light of the fact that they are grazers and most of the Pelagirs are forested, to sponsor colonies of dyheli into some of the unused grazing lands on the western border, and our dyheli are also along as scouts to investigate this possibility. We could say that, as grazers, they wish to find if the lands and available grasses and plants suit their tastes.”

Darian giggled at the word play. “What - what do these dyheli look like?” Darian asked. “I mean, I’ve heard stories, about some of the things in Hawkbrother lands, but I’ve never seen any.”

Snowfire smiled. “That, my friend, you are about to see for yourself. Look there - “

He pointed as they came around another of the ubiquitous vine curtains - and there, in a sunny meadow, was a small herd of something vaguely like deer with ghostlike coloration of pale beige and cream.

At least, they had four legs, hooves, and two delicately curved, unbranching horns on their heads. But the heads themselves were much larger than that of a deer, the enormous brown eyes looked more forward than a deer’s did. But the biggest difference was in the shape of the skull; a small and delicate muzzle, comparatively speaking, but an elongated cranium, something that could easily contain a brain the size of a man’s.

As he and Snowfire stood at the edge of the clearing, every dyheli head came up, the humans were examined closely, but swiftly, and then every dyheli head came down again, back to the important business of grazing.

Darian blinked at them in awe; he was no stranger to the concept of an intelligent, four-legged creature. After all, he was a native of Valdemar, and you’d have to have the brains of a wheel of cheese not to know all about Companions. But these creatures were so - different.

“Do they talk?” he asked in a whisper.

“Not like the hertasi do,” came the reply. “The dyheli speak mind-to-mind. Some of us find it difficult to speak to them, as some of us are better at Mindspeech with non-humans than others.” Snowfire smiled down at him. “I happen to be one of the lucky ones; I find it as easy to speak with them as I do with you. Easier, in fact, for I am not translating into a foreign tongue.”

Darian turned his attention back to the dyheli. “I wonder if I could learn to talk to them,” he mused out loud.

:Why not simply try?:

“Because I don’t know if I can - “ he began, then realized that Snowfire had not spoken aloud.

In fact, the voice he had heard had been entirely in his mind - and had not been Snowfire’s.

One of the dyheli had raised his head again, and was walking toward them, his eyes centered on Darian. The delicate creature had no expression to read, but the voice in Darian’s head was warm and amused. :It is a great advantage to speak this way, little brother,: the dyheli stag said to him. :It requires no translators, and it is very, very difficult to lie or be lied to. It tends to make all things level, as it were.: