Owlsight

“Innocent.”

“Absolutely.”

The elder rolled his eyes, but said only, in the driest voice imaginable, “Indeed.”

Summerdance looked stricken. “But, Father - !”

“Save it for one who did not see you born, when you came into the world with mischief grasped in both hands,” the elder interrupted, closing his eyes and leaning back into the embrace of the hot water. “Now let a poor old man soak his bones in peace.”

Nightbird snatched at a towel, and stood up. “Come on, friends, no one appreciates us here. Let’s just get dressed and show Dar’ian around a little!”

Summerdance was not at all reluctant, so Darian found himself shortly clothed in the loose-fitting, cool garments that the Hawkbrothers favored for lounging, with each arm being held by an extremely attractive young lady as he was steered toward the guest houses.

“Have you actually got weather in the Vale?” he asked curiously, seeing that the strangely built houses had proper roofs under all their foliage.

“Controlled weather,” Summerdance said proudly. “Though before we had enough power back to put the Veil back up, we had regular weather in here for a while. All we really do is keep things warm; if it rains out there, it rains in here - if it snows out there, it rains in here.”

“Why keep rain out?” Nightbird continued from the other side. “The plants still need it, and besides, most of us like rain, as long as it’s warm.”

“And in the summer, we never let it get too warm in here,” Summerdance added. “No droughts either. Though we try not to let any droughts happen outside - with trees the size of the ones in the Pelagiris, an uncontrolled forest fire would not bear thinking about. We arrange for controlled fires of course, to keep the forest healthy, but the forest has to be well-watered before we dare do that. That’s why, when we were doing without, we gave up the Veil so that we could keep doing weather-magic.”

Darian nodded, with a shiver. He and the team had helped to fight a forest fire, the first he’d ever seen, and Summerdance was right. A forest fire loose among the great trees of the Pelagiris would be nothing short of a holocaust.

There were no doors on these buildings, only a living screen of leafy vine, which Summerdance parted so they could all walk inside the first building of the group. The walls were half-structure, half artwork; windows of colored glass gave way to carved panels of wood which in turn gave place to living walls of braided tree trunks and vines, all of it lit by lanterns rather than mage-lights. There, as promised, was a table spread with simple foodstuffs: breads, fruit, cheeses. They all helped themselves, and poured drinks from covered pitchers of cool juices, then took their loot to a grouping of several fat cushions on the floor. There were proper chairs and tables, more groupings of cushions, and even a couch or two, but the girls clearly preferred to sprawl on cushions.

In between mouthfuls they told him about the Vale, saving him from having to make any conversation at all. He made interested sounds from time to time, but otherwise kept his mouth full and closed. He heard more than he could store away in his memory about the Vale itself, who was partnering with whom, who was quarreling with whom, who had designs on whom, what projects were going, stalled, stupid, or planned - in short, it sounded exactly like a village, with all the village gossip. Only with much better scenery and clothing!

Even the strangest people have familiar habits, he thought wryly, and let them chatter on until he was comfortably full.

Then he sat up a little straighter and began to insert some questions of his own.

“Where did the dyheli go?” he asked first, for he hadn’t seen a single one since they’d all disappeared with the massed herds. “The all vanished together when we got here.”

“They have their own big meadow at the far end of the Vale, farthest from the entrance,” Summerdance told him. “I’ve got my ekele in a tree on the edge of the meadow.”

“And Kelvren? Where’s he?”

“With the rest of the gryphons, in the cliffs above the Vale; that’s where I live.” That was Nightbird, of course - and suddenly something clicked in Dalian’s mind.

“You’re Nightwind’s sister!” he exclaimed. “The trondi’irn apprentice - that’s why you got letters from Snowfire!”

For some reason that revelation seemed excruciatingly funny to both girls, as they burst into laughter again. “I told you he’d figure it out all by himself!” Nightbird chortled.