Owlknight

He found himself juggling multiple ley-lines, plus Heartstone power, while fending off little stinging “annoyance” attacks from Firesong - and meanwhile he had to accomplish his started task, which was to create a second outlet for his hot spring, since there was more than enough water flowing from it to supply two sets of hot pools. Ayshen had already voiced a wish for a supply of hot water for the kitchens so that they didn’t nave to use the smoke-belching wood-fired boiler that everyone considered a dubious compromise; adding blocks of native hickory sweetened the smell but still was not ideal. So, Darian just had to make a channel for the water from his spring. “Just.” Hah!

What he’d actually had to do was find a series of cracks and weak spots through the bedrock leading to the kitchen, seal them from side pathways, then coax a tendril of the hot spring to take those cracks as he slowly forced open the weak spots, melted and sculpted the stone into a sealed channel, and finally bring the spring out near the boiler itself, so that Ayshen could use the existing boiler as a hot-water storage tank instead.

And meanwhile, hundreds of little wasplike attack “stingers” came at him from every possible direction - any he didn’t deflect gave him a sharp reminder of his inadequacy. Twice Firesong even lobbed physical rocks at him, as he had during his Master Trial. He deflected both away - the second one directly back at his mentor, earning a chuckle from him.

When he was through, Firesong laughed, congratulated him, and sent him back to his own ekele to bathe and change again. For a few hours, at least, he had been far too preoccupied to think of his father, but as soon as he set one foot on the path outside the workroom, it began again.

And Mother - how is she? I don’t know anything about her - but if Father survived having his foot taken off, she had to have been with him. He could easily imagine her standing by and guarding him, hunting for both of them until he recovered, taking care of him. They worked together as seamlessly as a hand inside a glove; they’d both been hunters, but had switched to trapping so that they could include Darian in their treks. Trapping was no less work than hunting, but the danger was a bit less, and it had been something that they could all work at together, even when Darian was an infant. A crying baby wasn’t much use on a stalk, but didn’t make much difference in working a trap-line.

He opted for a quick shower, using a spigot high up on the wall, perforated with many tiny holes. It was his own idea, to have a way to get clean quickly in his own quarters rather than having to head for a hot pool or falls; Keisha liked it for washing her hair. He was just pulling his clean shirt on over his head when he heard hoofbeats coming toward the open front door.

He hurried outside, still barefoot, hoping to be able to catch not only Keisha, but her sister, and possibly Herald Anda as well. He wanted to tell all three of them what he had discovered himself. By now the news had certainly spread all over the Vale, and when any story spread, it tended to get changed, sometimes out of all recognition.

He was in luck; all three of them were together, and he managed to wave Anda and Shandi in before they rode off to the guest lodge. Keisha looked faintly puzzled, but she said nothing.

“Listen, I need to tell all three of you what’s just happened,” he said when the other two had dismounted. Then when the Companions shook their heads and snorted at him, he quickly revised, “I mean, all five of you.”

The Companions looked mollified at his acknowledgment and he quickly outlined his search, the results, and the information that had come out of the magical investigation afterward. “And that’s all I know,” he concluded, looking mostly at Keisha for her reaction. “It’s driving me frantic, because there really isn’t enough to make a search on - ”

“But you have to keep working on it!” Keisha exclaimed passionately, interrupting him. “Of course you have to! How can you come so close and just leave it at that? And when you do find out where they are, you’ve got to go looking for them!”

“I wouldn’t advise undertaking a full-scale search on so little information,” Herald Anda cautioned. This was what Darian had expected out of him, but suddenly Anda dropped his dignity and his caution and burst out with, “But - oh, hang it all! We’ll all help you get a better idea of where to look, and the Tayledras and the Northerners, too, no doubt! Surely as many good minds as we have can come up with something!”

Darian stared for a moment, as Shandi nodded energetically. “I absolutely agree,” Shandi seconded firmly. “No doubt at all; Karles feels the same. We’ll all work on this together. It seems to me that with all the best minds of Valdemar and the Vales working on it, we’ll surely come up with a way to figure out exactly where your parents are, and bring them home again!”

Darian did not know whether to laugh or weep with relief. He’d been sure that Keisha would support him, but he’d been half convinced that the two Heralds would oppose any attempt to find and bring back his parents, since it would mean his absence from Valdemar - and all his duties. “I - all I can say is ‘thank you’ and that hardly seems adequate,” he managed, after two tries to make words come out had failed.

“Thank us when we’ve got some results,” Anda said simply. “Just know we’re not going to oppose you, and we’ll help you any way we can, starting by putting our own minds to work on this. Remember, I was trained in a couple of different ‘schools’ of magic; I might be able to think of something new to you.”

He and his Companion exchanged a glance, then he and Shandi traded looks. “We all need some rest, and a chance to think, so we’ll see you later,” Shandi said by way of farewell, then she and Anda mounted again and rode off toward the guest lodge.