“Bone of bone,” Lillinara sang.
“Flesh of flesh,” Tomanak pronounced.
“Heart of heart,” his sister said.
“And soul of soul,” their voices mingled in a duet fit to set the heavens trembling or send mountains dancing, a song that echoed from the stars themselves. “Be two who are one. Give, share, love, and know the joy such love deserves.”
Light gathered about the extended wrists-a cloud of blue touched with the argent of moonlight and burnished with gold. It enveloped Bahzell’s and Leeana’s arms, flashing higher and brighter, and then, with a silent explosion, it vanished and they gazed at the bracelets upon their wrists. The traditional cuff-style marriage bracelets of a Sothoii wife and husband, but different. They gleamed not with the gold of which such bracelets were made, at least among the wealthy, nor with the rubies with which such bracelets were set. No, these were of silver and set with opals in a gleaming circle about the full moon of the Mother between the crossed sword and mace of Tomanak. More than that, they were broader and made in a single, unbroken piece, without any opening, as if they had been forged about their wearers’ wrists, and even in the bright daylight of the Wind Plain, they gleamed faintly in blue and silver.
Bahzell and Leeana stared down at them, then raised their eyes to Tomanak and Lillinara once more, and Tomanak smiled at them.
“We promise they won’t glow when you don’t want them to,” he said. “When you’re creeping around in the shrubbery, for example.” His smile grew broader, then faded into an expression of sober pleasure. “And I know the two of you needed no outward symbol of your love for one another. But when we find ourselves as proud of someone as we are of you, we reserve the right to give them that outward symbol, whether they need it or not. Wear them with joy, my children.”
Bahzell and Leeana nodded, unable for once to speak, and Lillinara cocked her head.
“And now, Leeana, I have a gift to celebrate your wedding.”
“Lady?” Leeana looked puzzled.
“I think it will bring you joy, Leeana, but it isn’t really for you. Or not directly at least,” Lillinara continued. “Not even a goddess can make things as if they’d never happened. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take steps… Gayrfressa.”
The mare twitched, her surprise obvious, and her ear pricked forward as she gazed up at the deity.
‹ Yes, Lady?› Even her mental voice seemed less brash than usual, and Lillinara smiled at her.
“You are as worthy a daughter as Leeana,” the goddess said. “And, like her, you would never ask any special favor for yourself. And that is why I give both of you this gift on the day of her wedding and to celebrate the day of your bonding with her.”
She reached out, touching Gayrfressa’s forehead, and silver light blazed up, blindingly bright in the daylight. The courser’s head tossed-in surprise, not fear or hurt-and then the light flashed once and was gone.
Bahzell’s ears flattened as Gayrfressa turned her head, looking at him, and her incredulous joy flooded into him through his herd sense. The mutilated socket of her right eye had been filled once again-not with an eye, but with a glittering blue and silver star. It glowed, almost like Wencit of Rum’s wildfire eyes but without the shifting rainbow hue of Wencit’s gaze, and delight roared through Gayrfressa’s heart like the proud, joyous strength of the wind for which she was named as the vision which had been ripped from her was restored.
“You’ve always seen more than most, Daughter,” Lillinara told her gently. “Now you’ll be able to see what others see, as well. And perhaps,” the goddess smiled almost impishly, and delight chuckled and rippled through the glorious harmony of her voices, “you’ll see just a little more clearly than they while you’re about it.”
She stepped back, beside Tomanak, and the two deities gazed at the four mortals before them for a long, silent moment. Then, in unison, they bent their heads in a bow of farewell and vanished.
Human, hradani, and coursers looked at one another, bemused, shaken, joyous, and somehow deeply rested and refreshed, and the voices of god and goddess whispered in the backs of their brains.
“Love each other, children. Love each other always as much as you do now, for yours is a song this world will long remember, and love is what will take you there, and give you strength, and bring you home to us in the end.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Now that’s impressive,” Leeana observed the next morning as Gayrfressa and Walsharno rounded a last bend and emerged in a clearing in the middle of a forest of towering pines.
“Aye, that it is,” Bahzell replied, and it wasn’t the simple agreement it might have been. Unlike his wife-and, oh, but that word tasted good in his thoughts! — he’d seen the plans, although the last time he’d actually been here, there’d been nothing to see but trees. He’d known exactly what to expect…and his expectations had fallen well short of the reality anyway.
The pine forest about them covered a stretch of gently rolling hills on either side of the Balthar River. Anywhere except atop the Wind Plain, they probably wouldn’t have been dignified with the name of “hills” at all. But they were high enough to be noticeable, heaved up by whatever long-ago cataclysm had diverted the Balthar from the Gullet, and they sloped steadily downhill to the southeast until they met the Bogs that diversion had created. The trees themselves were enormous, rising out of a gauzy layer of early mist the sun had yet to burn away, but they’d been cleared and the stumps had been rooted out from an area at least five hundred yards across.
That clearing wasn’t what had evoked Leeana’s comment, however. No, what she was looking at was the gaping hole at its center. That hole was a rectangle, sixty-five feet by thirty feet, sloping gently but inevitably downward into the lantern-lit depths at a three-degree angle. The last few yards, where it passed through clay and soil, were lined with brick and concrete, but beyond that it was bored out of smoothly polished stone, and a constant, gentle pressure blew out of it to greet them as they approached it.
“Why is there so much breeze coming out of it?” she asked.
“You’ll have to ask that of Serman, if it’s a complete answer you want,” Bahzell said wryly. “It’s often enough he’s tried to explain it to me, but I’ll not pretend I actually understand it. As nearly as I’ve been able to lay hands on it, even air is after having its own weight, and the thicker it is, the more it’s after weighing. And the air at the foot of the Escarpment is just a mite thicker than it is up here where you Sothoii are after living. So the weight as presses down on all that air down below is after squeezing it up through the tunnel.”
Leeana looked at him as if she suspected him of making sport of her, and Walsharno snorted.
‹ I was there when Serman explained it to him. All the times Serman explained it to him,› the courser told her. ‹ He got it pretty much straight. Of course, Serman is one of those two-foots who can’t seem to explain anything without numbers. Lots of numbers.›
‹ Which must have been dreadfully confusing for someone who can’t even read,› Gayrfressa observed to no one in particular. Walsharno ignored her rather pointedly, and the mare tossed her head in the equine equivalent of a laugh.
They’d continued towards the opening while they spoke, and now they halted as the score or so of hradani and dwarves laboring to build the brick housing which would protect the upper end of the tunnel from wind and weather-and especially from ice and snow, given Wind Plain winters-when it was finished looked up and saw them.
“Prince Bahzell!” one of the hradani called, laying aside his trowel and walking across to greet them. He wiped his powerful, calloused hands on his canvas work apron, then reached up far enough-it was a stretch, even for a Horse Stealer hradani-to clasp forearms with Bahzell. “Sure, and you might have warned us as you were coming,” he said with the informality of a member of Bahzell’s own clan.
“So I might, if I’d been minded to,” Bahzell agreed cheerfully. “But it was in my mind as how I might surprise you and your lads lazing around up here if it so happened you weren’t expecting me, Harshan!”
“Lazing around, is it?” Harshan grinned up at him. “Not so likely with Serman cracking the whip!”
“And a true terror he is.” Bahzell’s foxlike ears twitched with amusement. “Given the choice, I’d sooner face dog brothers than a dwarf with a schedule to meet!”
“You’d not find yourself alone in that,” Harshan said with feeling. His eyes drifted sideways to Leeana, and
