“Do those factors include, Amarah?” said Daniel, a dangerous edge in his tone.
“Who?” responded Thillmarius, but then he focused on the woman in Daniel’s arms. “You mean the servant? Yes, that may well be a part of the puzzle. Our knowledge of humans in captivity has, until now, shown no sign of the capabilities they once had. Your development indicates that something about you is very different, but genetically you do not differ in any significant fashion from them, aside from your magical potential.”
“Geneteckly?” Daniel said.
“It refers to your inherited traits. Aside from your new mutation for aythar manipulation, you might as well have been sired in Ellentrea,” said Thillmarius.
Daniel was tired of speculation; he wanted an end to things, “What’s next?”
“Well, naturally I’ll lodge a complaint with the elders. Syllerond was obviously here to rob the Illeniels of valuable property, and more specifically he wanted to disrupt my advantage in the arena. The Gaelyn Grove will undoubtedly also complain about the death of one of their children…,” began Thillmarius.
“No,” interrupted Daniel, “How are we going to do this? Will you just wave your hand?” He pointed at his necklace. “Or will there be an extensive period of torture first?”
The black-skinned She’Har laughed, “Oh my, no! Only your owner can use your necklace, otherwise Syllerond would have done so.” He put his hand to his chin, “Then again, perhaps he wouldn’t have, being the pompous ass that he was. In any case, I have no intention of disposing of valuable property, nor could I. You belong to Lyralliantha.”
“Then you should call her,” suggested Daniel. “Dangerous animals should be put down.”
Thillmarius grinned, “No, I believe that must be a human notion. The She’Har prefer to train them and use them properly. You’ll be punished and taught to channel your aggression more appropriately.”
A cold hand seemed to grip Daniel’s heart as Thillmarius mentioned punishment. His arms tightened involuntarily around Amarah, as if she might somehow protect him from his fear.
“Your owner has already been summoned, but there’s no reason to wait for the first round of punishment.” Thillmarius sent a long line of spellweaving snaking toward Daniel.
He began scrabbling backward, still dragging Amarah’s limp body with him, clutching at her like a doll. His greatest fear had come to life, not only would he not be given death, but he would have to endure even more of Thillmarius’ horrific ‘attention’ before being forced to continue living.
Creating a shield around himself was all he could manage. His rage and anger had dissipated already, and sorrow offered him no protection against the deep fear that Thillmarius’ previous sessions had engraved on his heart.
A woman’s voice rose, speaking in the alien tongue that the She’Har used among themselves. Thillmarius’ magic stopped and then withdrew. Lyralliantha was walking toward them, moving gracefully through Ellentrea’s crude streets.
When she had gotten close enough, the two She’Har began a discussion that, while it seemed calm on the surface, showed an entirely different level of emotion to Daniel’s special perception. Lyralliantha was angry and Thillmarius, while he began the exchange mildly amused, soon became irritated. The conversation was liberally sprinkled with a word that Daniel had learned meant ‘no’ in their language.
After a few minutes they grew calmer, and their tongues grew still. Thillmarius was radiating a sense of resignation while Lyralliantha seemed infused with sadness and something else—guilt? Regret? Neither of the two made sense to Daniel.
“Your kind master wanted to put you out of your misery,” said Thillmarius. Misunderstanding the look of hope on Daniel’s face, he clarified, “Her words, not mine.”
“Wanted?” said Daniel in dismay.
“Yes, I managed to talk her out of it. Unfortunately, she is insisting that I relinquish you. I am afraid you will be under her care for a while, until she realizes the impracticality of trying to keep baratti in her home.” Thillmarius seemed rather put out.
Lyralliantha was speaking to Daniel in soothing tones now, as one might speak to a wounded animal. Her eyes were full of pity.
“What did she say?” asked Daniel.
Lyralliantha didn’t wait for the other She’Har’s reply, interrupting instead with a barrage of angry words. Thillmarius pursed his lips and then answered Daniel.
“She was explaining that you would be coming to live with her,” he said.
“And after that?” said Daniel suspiciously.
Thillmarius paused, but Lyralliantha barked another word at him, and he resumed, “She was angry that you still do not speak our language. She seems to think you would have learned it from me or the other baratti by now.”
“Will you tell her that I wish to die? Please?” begged Daniel.
“I will not,” replied Thillmarius. “It was hard enough to convince her to keep you alive. I’m not sure how I will continue my studies with you living outside of Ellentrea. I would caution you not to communicate otherwise to her, wildling. If you do, I will see to it that the people of your village pay for your inconsiderateness.”
Daniel gaped at him. Thillmarius had never threatened him with such a thing before.
The red-headed She’Har smiled kindly at him, “Just do as she tells you until she tires of this game and sends you back into my care.”
A light touch on his arm brought his focus back to Lyralliantha. She motioned for him to stand, to follow her, but he was still holding Amarah’s cooling body. He disengaged himself and eased her to the ground before he stood, but the sight of her there broke his heart once again.
She lay motionless on the dusty earth, coarse brown hair in disarray. More than ever her features seemed plain, and her bent nose was starkly unattractive. To Daniel’s eyes she seemed at that moment a symbol, representative of humanity as a whole, or rather, what they had been reduced to, in the hands of the She’Har. She had been raised like an animal, unloved and uncared for, nourished on violence and crude punishment, but Daniel had seen the spark of love and laughter in her. It had risen from her heart, when it had seen only the tiniest bit of light.
He remembered her rare smiles, lips curling over crooked teeth, and in the memory of it, he knew that it was the secret to humanity’s greatest successes. The great cities and machines weren’t made by people nursed on hatred. They were made by people like me, people brought up to love one another.
Lyralliantha spoke again, tugging on his shoulder. Daniel’s face was dry now, his tears gone, but he couldn’t leave Amarah like that. “May I do something for her?” he asked.
Thillmarius had already gone, so Lyralliantha put her fingers to his temple and raised his own hand to hers, allowing him to show her what he intended. She nodded a moment later and let him proceed.
Opening a deep pit in the earth with his power, Daniel lowered Amarah’s body into it before covering it again with soil. It was an impromptu grave, there in the middle of the street, but it was better than any other human living in Ellentrea had ever received. Picking up the cittern, Daniel let Lyralliantha lead him away.
She glanced at the instrument in curiosity, but said nothing. Perhaps she remembered it from the vision he had shown her once. Daniel wasn’t sure.
Together they strode from Ellentrea toward the great trees that made up the Illeniel Grove.
***
Daniel spent the night sleeping on the same platform that he had been placed on when he first came to the She’Har. The air was chilly, but unlike the previous occasion, he now knew how to keep himself warm, wrapping his body with a light shield and heating the air within it slightly.
He didn’t play the cittern, although he had nothing else to do. He was nervous and uncertain, not really understanding Lyralliantha’s intentions. To avoid the risk of irritating her, he stayed quiet and did nothing.
Despite his self-imposed inactivity, he was far from bored. After years of liv
ing in a small room with nothing new to see or do, sitting on a platform in the Illeniel Grove was almost overwhelming. With his magesight, he watched the She’Har coming and going, traveling back and forth along the wide branches that served them as pathways between the trees. All of those he saw were similar to Lyralliantha, with silver hair and blue eyes.
Lyralliantha herself was on a platform several hundred feet above him, meeting with several others of the Illeniel Grove. He could see them together, but he had no way of knowing what they were saying. Even if he could hear, he wouldn’t have understood the words.
Over the years he had picked up a smattering of random words in her language, simply from listening to the announcers and random conversations here and there. He knew the names for a variety of common objects and a few simple responses such as ‘yes’ and ‘no’. For the most part he was still ignorant of the language. He had been surprised when Thillmarius had mentioned that she was angry he hadn’t learned her tongue.
Had she thought someone would talk to him?
His few conversations with Thillmarius had been in Barion, the human tongue. The She’Har hadn’t had the patience to spend any time trying to teach him his language. As for the other humans, it had taken him years just to get Amarah to speak to him. The only other person he had spoken to was Garlin, and the warden certainly hadn’t had the time to tutor him.
Lyralliantha returned to him in the morning. She had a bundle of linen and leather in her arms, a warden’s clothing. She offered it to him while speaking slowly, carefully enunciating her words, “Tyleth si mach ni juerpar.”
Daniel accepted the clothes from her, but the words meant nothing to him. Seeing the incomprehension on his face, Lyralliantha leaned forward, touching his temple and showing him a picture of himself putting on the clothes. She repeated the words slowly at the same time and then added an image of him speaking to her in turn.
He realized after a second that she wanted him to either repeat her words, or to teach her the same phrase in his language. Unsure, he did both, “Tyleth si mach ni juerpar,” he said and then he gave her what he thought must be the translation in Barion, “Put the clothes on.”
Lyralliantha graced him with a smile, nodding. She repeated his translation, “Put they cloves onn—tyleth si mach ni juerpar.”
They repeated the phrases back and forth a couple of times, until each of them had the pronunciation close enough to be understood. Once they had that mastered, and Daniel had donned the clothing, she said something new, touching his forehead to explain her words. A picture of her leaving and then returning appeared in his mind.
“I will be back,” Daniel said aloud, after repeating her words.
She smiled, “I will be back,” and then she left, leaving Daniel to his thoughts.
Am I a warden now? Is this the reward for killing one of them; clothes and a home in the trees? None of this makes sense.
Lyralliantha didn’t return until that evening, when the sun was falling below the horizon. She bore a tray with several bowls on top of it. One was filled with an assortment of nuts while another held berries and small fruits. The third bowl contained two pear sized fruits that Daniel hadn’t seen before. The fourth bowl held a dead rabbit and two potatoes.
Her words and the picture she put in his mind made the question clear, “What do you like to eat?”
His answer took considerably longer to relay. He began by sampling the nuts and berries, telling her “I like this,” each time. She taught him a new phrase in her tongue to reflect his Barion phrase.
When he got to the fruit that he couldn’t identify, he resorted to trying it. It was mildly sweet with a resistance to his bite that fell somewhere midway between the crunch of an apple and the softness of an overripe pear. The flavor reminded him somewhat of a peach. “I like this,” he told her, repeating the phrase in her tongue.
“Calmuth,” she told him. The picture she gave him showed the She’Har picking the fruit directly from some of the great trees. She followed by eating one of them herself.
I wonder if that’s their only food.
That question was answered quickly when Lyralliantha ate a handful of the nuts and followed them with some of the berries. She wrinkled her nose with an expression of faint disgust when she looked at the rabbit and potatoes.
Daniel had done some cooking with his mother, and he was fairly sure that rabbit and potatoes had been one of the mainstays of the poorly made stew that he had been fed on the past few years. He had never considered himself to be a good cook, but he knew that the most basic things he had learned watching and helping his mother would produce something far better than what the people of Ellentrea seemed to subsist on.
Raising his hand he offered it to Lyralliantha, waiting for her consent before putting his fingers to her temple. He painted a picture for her, showing himself skinning the rabbit and peeling the potatoes. He added new vegetables to the vision, onions, carrots, parsley and cabbage, in the hope that she might recognize them. He ended by showing himself cooking them in a pot over a low fire. He wasn’t able to give her a picture of salt that was descriptive enough, but he managed to convey the ‘taste’ of saltiness combined with an image of small white crystals.
She seemed to understand, sending him images of carrots and what he thought might be salt, but she didn’t move to leave. He hoped she was indicating that she could bring the additional items in the future, but he had no way to be certain.
In some ways communicating with pictures is very broad, and yet it still fails to approach the depth that language routinely accomplishes, he noted.
He used his special abilities to skin and gut the rabbit, leaving the unwanted parts in the bowl. He had been tempted to throw them down, but he wasn’t sure that was the proper way to dispose of waste for people who lived in trees. He cleaned the potatoes in a similar fashion, easily scouring them until all the dirt and most of their peels were removed. Without a pot or an oven, he simply created a box-like construction of pure force and then slowly heated the interior of it, roasting the meat and tubers.
She watched him with interest, but said nothing.
A few minutes later they still had nothing else to do. His food was still roasting quietly in its makeshift magical box. Lyralliantha showed him pictures of a new person, another She’Har talking with him, but he wasn’t certain what they meant.
Then she pointed at his musical instrument, voicing another question.
“Cittern,” said Daniel, providing its name.
“Sit-urn,” she replied before adding another unknown phrase. Her tone was still questioning.
He mimed holding it and strumming the strings with his fingers, “You use it to play music.” That earned him another curious glance, so he picked it up gingerly and eased it into position. A light touch sent a soft chord vibrating through the air between them.
Lyralliantha’s face lit with sudden recognition; touching his forehead she showed him a dim vision of his mother playing the cittern to him. She had remembered it from what he had shown her years before.
Daniel blinked, eyes watering at the sudden emotion the vision evoked in him. I can’t believe she remembers that. He nodded at her, saying the She’Har word for ‘yes’. Relaxing his shoulders, he began to play again, the melody for ‘Dana’s Lament’ flowing from his heart to be expressed through the strings. After Amarah’s death it was the only song that his hands felt like playing.
Lyralliantha became strangely quiet, as if afraid to move while he played. Her lips stayed smooth, but the skin around her eyes shifted as subtle emotions played beneath the surface. She watched Daniel play until the song was finished and then urged him to play again.
There was no further talk between them after that. Only the soft interplay of notes dancing through the air before they finally reached the ears that waited for them. The Illeniel She’Har seemed as though she would never get her fill of music, but eventually Daniel’s food was done roasting, and he was forced to stop
before it burned.
She left while he picked at the hot food, voicing more words that he didn’t understand.
Chapter 32
The next morning she returned, bringing with her another She’Har. The newcomer was male, and also of the Illeniel Grove.
“My name is Byovar,” he said, introducing himself. “Lyralliantha has asked me to teach you our tongue, Tyrion.”
“That would be a help,” admitted Daniel.
“While you learn our language, I will endeavor to teach your owner some Barion,” added Byovar. He repeated his words in their language and then spoke to Daniel again, “The first thing you should learn is the name for our language, ‘Erollith’.”
“Erollith,” repeated Daniel dutifully.
From that point Byovar began to school Daniel in a variety of nouns, expanding his vocabulary greatly. As he taught each word, he repeated its name in both Barion and Erollith, which helped Lyralliantha learn the corresponding term in Barion.
After a couple of hours, Byovar called an end to the lessons, declaring that they would resume the next day, to give them time to assimilate what they had learned.
Before he left, Daniel asked him a question, “Pardon me, but can you tell me what’s going to happen to me?”
Byovar lifted an eyebrow, “That depends entirely upon Lyralliantha.”
“But, Syllerond, surely there will be a trial or something,” said Daniel.
The She’Har man frowned, “Trial? Do you mean a test?”
It took Daniel a moment to explain the human concept of justice and judgment.
The She’Har laughed, “No, we have nothing like that. The Gaelyn Grove has already paid the Prathions for their intrusion into Ellentrea, and Lyralliantha has paid the Gaelyns for the loss of Syllerond.”
“Paid?” asked Daniel.
“In ‘shuthsi’,” said Byovar. “It isn’t quite like the human concept of money; we don’t use it to pay for property or food. It is more a measure of respect and status between the groves.”