unconsciouslyyou are reluctant to return to the position of commanded, having been commander.'
'You have hinted that before, Elder,' Darkwind answered him grimly. 'And the suggestion was just as repellent the first time as it is now. I think I know myself very well now, and there is no such reluctance on my part for that ridiculous reason. If there were anyone else within the scouts who wanted the position, I would give it to him-or her-and gladly.' And if we were a less civilized people, those words would be cause for a challenge.
'I have said that I do not know this thing you have become, Darkwind-' Starblade began.
Darkwind cut him off abruptly with an angry gesture. 'Indeed, Elder,' he replied, turning on his heel and tossing his last words over his shoulder as he left the outer room of Starblade's ekele. 'You do not know me at all, if you think that little of me.' It was not-quite-the kind of exit he would have liked. There was no door to slam, only a hertasi-made curtain of strung seeds-and it was difficult, if not impossible, to effectively stamp his feet the few steps it took to reach the ladder, without sounding like a child in a temper.
Which is how he wants me to feel, after all.
And if he rushed angrily down the ladder, even so short a distance as he needed with his father's tree- dwelling, he risked taking some stupid injury like a sprain or a broken limb. Starblade's ekele was hardly more than a few man-heights from the floor of the Vale, and had several rooms, like a bracelet of beads around the trunk of the huge tree it was built onto. The access leading to it was more like a steep staircase than a ladder.
So it was quite impossible to descend in any way that would underscore his mood without playing to his father's gloating.
He settled for vaulting off of the last few feet of it, as if he could not bear to endure Starblade's 'hospitality' a moment more. He landed as lightly and silently as only a woods-scout could, and walked away from the ekele without looking back, his purposeful steps taking him on a path that would lead him out of the Vale altogether.
He knew that he was by no means as calm as he looked, but he was succeeding in this much at least. He was working off some of his anger as he pushed his way through the exotic, semitropical undergrowth that shadowed and sometimes hid the path. The plants themselves were typical of any Tayledras Vale, but the state of rank overgrowth was not.
The Hawkbrothers always chose some kind of valley for their Clansites, something that could be 'roofed over' magically, and shielded from above and on all sides, so that the climate within could be controlled, and undesirable creatures warded off. Then, if there were no hot springs there already, the mages would create them-and force- grow broad trees to make them large enough to hold several ekele.
The result was always junglelike, and the careful placement of paths to allow for the maximum amount of cover and privacy for all the inhabitants gave a Vale the feeling of being uninhabited even when crowded with a full Clan and all the hertasi that served them.
It appeared uninhabited to the outsider. To a Tayledras, there was always the undercurrent of little sounds and life-feelings that told him where everyone was, a comforting life-song that bound the Clan together.
But there was no such song here, in k'sheyna Vale. Instead of a rich harmony, with under-melodies and counterpoint, the music halted, limped, within a broken consort. Hertasi made up most of the life-sparks about Darkwind, as the little lizard-folk went about their business and that of the Clan, cleaning and mending and preparing food. And that was not right.
Further, there were no child-feelings anywhere about. Only adults, and a mere handful of those, compared to the number a full Clan should muster.
Any Tayledras would know there is something wrong, something out of balance, just by entering the Vale.
Silence; Tayledras that were not mages undertook all the skilled jobs that hertasi could not manage-besides the scouts, there should have been artisans, musicians, crafters. All those activities made their own little undercurrent of noises, and that, too, was absent. The rustle of leaves, the dripping of water, the whisper of the passing of the shy hertasi, sounds that he would never have noticed seemed too loud in the empty Vale.
Then there were the little signs of neglect; ekele empty and untenanted, going to pieces, so that hertasi were constantly removing debris, and trying to get rid of things before they fell. Springs were littered with fallen leaves. Vegetation grew unchecked, untrimmed, or dying out as rare plants that had required careful nurturing went untended.
It all contributed to the general feeling of desolation-but there was an underlying sense of pain, as well. And that was because not all of the ekele stood empty by choice.
Half the Clan had moved to the new Vale, it was true, and were now out of reach until a new Gate could be built to them. There were no mages strong enough in the far-away, exiled half of the Clan to build that Gate, and not even the most desperate would choose to take children and frail elders on a trek across the dangerous territory that lay between them. But k'sheyna-that-remained was at a quarter of its strength, not a half. And most of those were not Adepts. The circle of Adepts that had been charged with draining and moving the Heartstone had been the strongest the Clan could muster; they had taken the full force of the disaster. fully half of those that had remained behind-most of the Adepts-had died in the catastrophe that claimed Darkwind's mother. Many of those that were left were still in something of a state of shock, and, like Darkwind himself, trying to cope with the unprecedented loss of so many mates, friends, and children. The silence left by their absence gnawed at the subconscious of mage and scout alike.
