Never in a hundred thousand years would I have thought that I would be best friends with a lizard, Delia thought with bemusement, as she looked down at the top of Jelavan’s head. It was amazing and kind of funny how they had fallen into friendship, as if they had known each other all their lives. She’d never had a friend like this; Sai was a surrogate father, Briada was a mentor, Jonaton was an eccentric big brother, but none of them were just friends. Her sister? Well, Isla was old enough they hadn’t really had anything in common before she married Kordas, and afterward, that just put more distance between them. Jelavan was a friend who always seemed to know what was going on, and how to explain it to her. She’d been accustomed to servants of all sorts back in the Duchy, but Jelavan was too fun to think of as a servant; he didn’t come across as a dreary, duty-first type, he was a cheery, everything-gets-done type. Like her scouting team, come to think of it.

It was only two days until the Midwinter Festival. The Valdemarans had been overjoyed to discover the Hawkbrothers of k’Vesla celebrated Midwinter too, and both peoples were determined to celebrate it together. Kordas was in complete agreement. After all they had been through, they needed a celebration!

Delia and Jelavan had been assigned to work on decorations. So now they were busy putting up strings of inedible red berries, pine cones that had been bleached and somehow gilded, and beautiful stars, tervardi (beautiful creatures that were humanoid birds) and dyheli woven out of gilded grass. As mages moved along the paths and the tunnels underground, they left tiny mage-lights no bigger than a fireflies behind them. All of this was in their spare time, of course, but now that they were no longer on the move, there was more of that than there had been before.

Nearly every day, Delia saw or learned of something new, wonderful, or just odd. The first had been the dyheli, graceful creatures that looked like a more refined and much larger version of goats, with a pair of branchless, twisting horns. They had taken over the management of the equine, cow, and sheep herds, without even being asked. Somehow they managed to get all of these creatures to drop their dung in corner “latrine” areas so it was easier to collect and drop into compost pits. To Delia’s wonderment, some of the dyheli could speak mind to mind with people who didn’t even have the power of Mindspeech. She was particularly enamored of the King Stag, Akayla. He was endlessly patient and never seemed to lose his temper. When she’d asked him why the dyheli had taken on the management of everything but the pigs, he had snorted. :No one sane wants someone’s dung on their dinner, no?: he’d replied. Which, of course, made perfect sense. As for the herds of swine, for the most part they were all living in spacious sties, which was where they liked to be. At least, according to the swineherds she’d talked to. The dyheli had simply “told” them that from now on, they were to relieve themselves only in special “latrine trenches” along the wall at the lowest part of the sty. They were, evidently, perfectly happy to comply. The trenches led to more compost pits. In all cases, a touch of magic sped up the usual process of decay, turning the dung into usable compost over the course of a single day, and keeping the smell to a minimum.

Kordas had been over the moon about this. I suppose, she thought, as she hung up a lovely straw star, that this is not only part of his responsibility to his people, to keep them healthy, it’s also in his own self-interest, because he is Landwise, and anything that hurts the land hurts him.

Meanwhile, the thing that had her excited was taking place uphill, at the northern end of the Tayledras compound, near the Heartstone.

They were growing a manor house.

At least, that was what Delia was calling it in her mind, because a manor house was, more or less, what it was going to be in function. Kordas wanted to be able to crowd all fifteen thousand people into it if they were attacked by something they couldn’t immediately drive off, and he’d sketched out his basic idea to the Hawkbrothers, who had nodded and said it could be done. “They won’t be comfortable,” Kordas had said. “But they’ll be alive.”

She’d assumed it would be “built,” because obviously—but no. The Hawkbrothers had some sort of thing already in the ground, a thing that grew buildings, and right now, the roof and most of the top floor were sticking up out of the dirt. She still could not wrap her mind around that concept. A “thing” that grew buildings! If the evidence hadn’t been up there right in front of her, she never would have believed it. That was why it was near the Heartstone, so the “thing” could take energy from the Heartstone to help it build.

Still . . . as they got to the vicinity of where this building was growing, she paused in her decorating to admire it. It was enchanting. It looked for all the world as if it was a normal building, but one somehow being built upward, rather than from the skeleton of the framework outward and inward. It was going to be quite impressive, with granite walls and a slate roof. Then she frowned as the true size of this building became apparent to her.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jelavan.

“This would have to be twenty stories tall to fit fifteen thousand people in it,” she pointed out. “Kordas is going to be upset.” Huh. Either I am getting very good at estimating how many people you can pack inside a building, or—maybe I overheard someone saying the same thing and don’t remember it?

“Oh, that’s not a problem.” Jelavan waved away her concerns with a claw that still held a straw tervardi. “All your people don’t have to fit in the building.”

She sighed. Jelavan had a habit of wanting to tease things out into conversations that could have taken place in a third of the time. Still . . . it amused the little hertasi, and he deserved some amusement for all his hard work. She had thought the Dolls worked hard, but the hertasi worked harder.

“And why is that, exactly?” she asked patiently.

“Oh, you would learn eventually, so I might as well show you now. It’s not as if we’ve kept it a secret from under you.”

Evidently she was getting better at taking hints, because the answer practically leapt out of her mind. “The tunnels! You’re going to show me the hertasi tunnels!”

“I am, in fact.” Now Jelavan’s mouth was halfway open and he was making the little panting sounds that meant laughter. “You are more clever than you look!”

“You’re lucky there’s no snow here,” she retorted. “I’d put a snowball down your back!” And that was when she had an idea.

She pictured a big snowdrift that she knew was just outside the Veil, firmed that picture in her mind, and “reached” for a handful—and stuffed it down the back of Jelavan’s tunic.

The sight of Jelavan trying to get the cold stuff out of his back, yipping and dancing, completely made up for the way he “innocently” jostled her so that a leaf full of water spilled over her head.

Kordas examined his growing “manor.” The building itself was unexpectedly handsome. But—

“This building is only supposed to have four stories and a basement,” he pointed out, beginning to feel anxious. “There—”

“Is no way that fifteen thousand people will fit in it, even if we stacked them like cordwood,” Silvermoon said, smoothly interrupting him. “Our tools and magic are good, but they are not going to grow you a building that large. Leaving aside the fact that even if we could, the people on the uppermost floors would curse you every day they had to go up and down all those stairs. As we have learned with our ekele, four stories are quite tall enough unless you have safe platforms to haul things up by, pulleys, and counterweights as they do in mines, and as we do in other Vales.”

That would mostly be the servants going up and down all those stairs, poor things. No, he’s right—

“So what’s the solution?” he asked bluntly. “Because I know you are hiding a solution up one of your sleeves.”

“Ah, you have come to know me so well.” Silvermoon smirked. “The hertasi tunnels, of course. This entire area is riddled with them. We decided that instead of collapsing them as we usually do when we leave a place, we’ll leave them open for your use. The tunnels are a lot easier to defend than a building.”

Kordas looked at him with alarm. “Isn’t that—the foundations would be undermined—sinkholes—”

“Please, give us more credit than that. Never mind, I’ll show you. Come along.” He beckoned, and Kordas followed him into what he had thought was an ornamental planting, but in the center of the planting was a round door in the ground. Lifting the doorhandles revealed a set of well-lit circular stairs. He couldn’t identify what they were made of. Too warm to the touch for metal, but the color of wrought iron, and apparently just as tough and quite thoroughly anchored to the wall, because they didn’t even tremble as the two of them made their way down. Kordas marveled as they wound their way to the bottom. This descent into the underground could have been alarming, but there was nothing that was in the least disturbing about this staircase. There was plenty of light on the stairs, thanks to mage-lights, and plenty of light at the bottom. It was only about one story down, and they found themselves at a crossroads of four tunnels.

The lighting was considerably dimmer down here than the sunlight of the surface, but that was probably because the eyes of the hertasi were more sensitive than those of humans. It was definitely humid, though not uncomfortably so. Much like a wine cellar, actually.

And now Kordas saw why Silvermoon had assured him that these tunnels weren’t undermining the surface above. The walls of the tunnel looked like glazed brick, and they were properly reinforced at intervals by heavy arches of more glazed brick.

“You see?” said Silvermoon. “Nothing is going to collapse. Not even if there was a fire down here. It would only make the tunnels stronger. The only thing that can collapse them is explosive magic, and you’d have to know exactly what to do and where the tunnels were to make that collapse happen. At any rate, come along, I’ll show you a little. The hertasi have already prepared the area next to where the basement to your building will be, and once the basement is completed, they will be putting in concealed entrances to these tunnels.”

“Because we might need to escape fast, and we don’t want whoever or whatever has invaded our building—”

“Palace,” interrupted Silvermoon. “You’re going to be a King, you should have a palace.”

Kordas felt himself blushing. “Oh, it’s very high class to be a king,” he replied, with mockery in his voice, though he was mocking only himself. “But it’s very crass to call yourself a ‘king’ and even crasser when you are ‘king’ of a place no bigger than a small duchy.”

Silvermoon snorted. “Just wait,” was all he said. “But yes. We’ll be completing the building with hidden entrances to these tunnels where you can hide, or escape, as you choose. And if you are attacked in force, you can put every single person you brought down here, as well as some of your animal stock. They won’t be comfortable, but they won’t be miserable either, and they will be safe.”

Silvermoon stopped talking and held up a hand. Kordas listened, and heard a voice he recognized, echoing from the tunnel to their left. Delia!

“. . . and it’s no fair that you haven’t offered Sai some of those mushrooms yet,” she was saying. “Oh, what he can do with mushrooms is—”

Delia and a hertasi stepped through the doorway and stopped. Kordas recognized the little lizard as Jelavan by his blue tunic with bronze feathers picked out along one shoulder.

They both stopped stock still. Jelavan recovered first, and nodded his head respectfully. “Oh! Welcome, Baron! I take it that Silvermoon is showing you our own little kingdom.”

“I hope we’re not trespassing,” Kordas replied.

“No, no, nothing of the sort! Most people just don’t like coming down here because it’s very disorienting until you learn the code!” He pointed to the keystones in each arch. “Blue is east, green is west, red is south and yellow is north. Then you pay attention to the patterns in the brickwork—” He began rattling off a long series of things Kordas was supposed to be looking for, then stopped, probably because Kordas couldn’t keep the dismay off his face. “Or, of course, you can just keep going in one direction until you come to a staircase or sky-blue ramp. They will always bring you to the surface.”

“That’s probably my best plan, should I have to come down here,” Kordas agreed.

“We have everything a creature could need here,” Jelavan said proudly. “We have storehouses, we grow mushrooms, there are workshops of all sorts, we make pottery and metalwork and cook and weave and sew and make jewelry and embroider, and work leather. We always make more room than we will actually need, just in case we have to take in another clan. We have a system for disposing of waste, as I believe you had in your manor back in the Duchy. We have lots of private quarters—oh! You need to avoid anything with a door with a hertasi sigil carved into it. That’s someone’s home. Or at least, you need to avoid those places until we’re all gone.”

“I’m not looking forward to that day,” Kordas told him candidly. “I find I am really enjoying the company of your people. And the Hawkbrothers too, of course!”

Silvermoon struck a subtle pose. “How could you not? We are vastly good company at even the worst of times, and at the best of times, we are a delight. But let’s continue our tours. Delia, Jelavan, would you like to join us?”

Kordas refrained from objecting. It wouldn’t do to hurt Delia’s feelings, though being down here in very close proximity to her was not something he was particularly comfortable with.

But to his surprise, after a moment of thought, Delia shook her head. “Silvermoon is going to show you boring, important things. I want to see the fun things.” And she giggled.

He smiled at that. Now that’s what I want to hear. He still felt a lot of guilt for dragging her out into the wilderness, when at her age, instead of being one of the linchpins of a scouting expedition into dangerous lands, learning how to fight, learning survival techniques, she should have been teaching her foal, being courted, maybe. Certainly she would be introduced to suitable potential partners at parties and celebrations. And of course, at this time of year, there would have been a fortnight of celebration and feasting, she might have been making herself a new gown—or sitting beside the fire and reading, maybe with Sydney-You-Asshole purring at her feet—

No, not that last. Unlikely to say the least. Another cat, or a dog, but never Sydney.

Still, this mad plan of his had stolen experiences from her that she would never have. Were the ones she’d had instead worth it?

Well, it looks like this one is.

“Come see the workshops, then!” Jelavan scampered off down the west tunnel, with Delia at his heels.

Delia is—running. To keep up with the hertasi, not telling them to slow down for her. Would you look at that.

“And what would you like to see?” Silvermoon asked.

Kordas sighed. “What I want to see is those workshops. What I need to see is the forge and anything else connected with tools, defensive weapons, and their making; I assume there is one down here?”

“More than one,” Silvermoon assured him, and led him eastward. “And we will be able to speak freely. The route I have in mind is proofed against spying, and will remain so for many years to come. Not forever, though. Sometimes it is wiser for us to leave a spell or enchantment going, to fade on its own. If no known magic-eater is in the territory, we might even attract some if we leave it loud.” He shrugged. “It’s a kind of dance, and we are obliged to negotiate with the land as well as cleanse it.”

Kordas understood about half of the terms Silvermoon used when speaking about magic. Kordas was not bad, not bad at all, when it came to his magic, and had very good control atop that. The concepts that Silvermoon spoke casually of—the ones in practice! and not theoretical—would have changed the Empire forever, if they were known. “Like the wyrsa? Why would anyone want to attract them?”

“A few good reasons. They may not have been nature-born, but they are a fact of the ecology now, and if they go, so does something else. Additionally, our task is to put order to magic in the Pelagirs, wherever we find what we can call by that term. Not all forest in this region is considered Pelagirs. “Clean” forest appears here and there and isn’t encroached upon, for reasons we don’t even know yet. Like little islands of cleanliness in a sea of corruption. Ideally, that is what we’ll turn this region into, and what it becomes then, well, my new friend, only fortune-tellers and story-tellers know. But until then, magic-eaters like the wyrsa are like mowers to grass, for us. They home in on aberrant magical creatures and effects, and trim them down. They maintain a level of stability that makes our work last, and prevents the Pelagirs from encroaching right on back.”

It was an intentionally convoluted answer, but Kordas understood why. When one makes the story convoluted, it portrays that the speaker thinks in a convoluted way. It expresses that they think everything mentioned is connected. Silvermoon explains like that to also give me an empathic personal expression of the subject, and its meaning to him. It creates sympathy for the strangeness. He’s masterful.

“It makes sense that out here, you would want to use every resource you could for your holy cause—whether you control them or not. But isn’t just leaving them alone a way of controlling their future, too?” Kordas was taking a risk in being so direct in what had the appearance, so far, of just pleasant conversation, but had been diplomatic dueling since “We are obliged to negotiate” was said.

That is a Tayledras declaration of verbal dueling. Everything spoken after that moment has been aimed for dominance and respect.

Silvermoon stopped walking. Without turning around, he answered. “You have more on your mind than forges. It’s understandable.” He then led Kordas only three more turns before entering what could only be termed an open-air cafe with a guard post built into it. Or—a cafe garrisoned by armed chefs. Everyone was friendly and before Silvermoon even got to the rear entry, smiling and waving a bit, he’d been handed three baskets of fresh food, which he brought along. As if he had already planned for us to be here now. Silvermoon knew how to create a frame of reference for negotiation: We know all, we can lead you where we want to, we see all, you are surrounded, we run this show, and I’m the one who asks the questions here. You are at an utter disadvantage.

This is fascinating, and gives me a few advantages.

They crossed a threshold declared in paint on the floor and a stack of mage-lights on each side. In the four steps it took to cross it, Kordas felt his magical senses caving in on themselves, as if they were being dammed up, but all of his nonmagical senses were unaffected. Then his magical senses were silent. Very silent, not just quiet. Just—gone, with an absence that felt like an ache. It was—belittling. Demeaning, for anyone to just take away someone’s senses without even a mention. This is a power move and he’s not afraid at all to declare it.

“Oh, it’s good to get that noise out of my head,” Kordas said after a few moments. You want to fence, let’s fence.

“Oh, that,” Silvermoon replied. Dismissive, downplaying. “I’m sure you have one, too. Ours are all over, for convenience for all sorts of things.” Hint that they’re used strategically. “We could surveill you and you wouldn’t find a trace of us magically.” Crafty.

“Well, it is pretty amazing what good loaders can fit on a barge. We’re lucky to have so many strong men and women with the best tools. It feels like we could handle anything we might need to.” Loaders, in this case, obviously standing in for troops. Slight emphasis on need; imply we don’t want conflict but can outperform them in sheer manpower, and that we have superior “tools” of warfare.

“Our greatest strength is always in our people. May they always be our art.” Oh, nice. Okay, I have to admit, that was good. Imply that a majority of approval is needed or we’d collapse while also reinforcing that, as individuals, his people are far more powerful per capita. All right. ‘The people as our art’ means our societies become what we make them—we, specifically, who are in a position of senior power. ‘Our art’ means specifically us, without any Council. That’s all about declaring who is in control here, and it’s us two. He recognizes that we have something in common in workable diplomacy—

All negotiation eventually comes down to two people.

They gave each other a side-eyed look, and stalked, entirely alone, through ever-branching hallways of mixed stone, wood, and sculpture, waterfalls and flowerflows, and ramps, even using their walking as a declaration of attitude. Competitive walking? This is childish. So I’ll do it better. They came to rest in a curve-walled lounge, complete with washroom, filled with maps and instruments as well as comfortable hanging chairs, narrow beds, and mage-lights, adjoining a wide, open-lofted chamber within a dome. For meetings that go very, very long, he surmised. The chamber it opened onto was ringed in benches, tables of all sorts, and odd instruments, and was smooth-paved in gridwalk, which his Tayledras language infusion told him was a markable surface treated to take chalk diagrams and timing notes precisely. Boards of the same stuff were placed around the chamber, as well as one in the lounge. The view was beautifully and artistically lit, giving an effect that Kordas hadn’t even realized was possible until now. Angling and directing light for emotional effect was simply not a thing that would have occurred to him, Kordas realized. He tried to avoid looking at the chamber’s center directly, but even with his discipline, it wanted all of his attention. He found himself actually holding his breath looking at it—

In the center of the chamber, radiating its own version of sunlight sprinkled with flares of light and a nimbus of rotating particles, was a Heartstone.

It glowed from deep within, a sculpture of crystals, glass, purified silver, and steel, scintillating from arcane energy, tapping out rhythms in synchrony to the types of magic going through it/through him/through everything. A slow swell and drop of deep earth world-life-birth magic, a prime beat faster of life-energy-sustainment-intent, backbeat of I-love-you, it-will-be-all-right, you-are-loved-Kordas—

Kordas exhaled quickly, blinking from the lights. Even without mage-sight, he could sense all of that. That weirdly specific emotional impact. He had to admit, he had trouble reconciling that.

“You have been expected. I take it that this needs no introduction.” Silvermoon raised his arm to present the scene. “This is where we do work that affects and influences the world. The number of Vales, outposts, ward-cities, and defense-holds varies, but they are all part of our network of active control points and Heartstones. Each one different, each one especially fine-tuned for its place and constellation. Adjustable, even mobile, in some cases. The number varies, but a fully operational Heartstone can pull ley-lines to itself, link them with other Heartstones, and skim their power for our use.”

By all the gods, that is enough power to obliterate any foe, if it was even casually applied to warfare. And this is what they work with every day? It isn’t even an event for them to move a ley-line around? I had no idea at all that could even be done. I thought too small. And they do it right . . . there.

Silvermoon murmured, in utter honesty, “It will always be a kind of home to me, this place. It’s almost powered down completely now, and I’ll never see it like this again. You know how that feels,” he said with some sadness in his voice. There was genuine affection here. Kordas stayed politely silent. Do the Heartstones have personalities? Are they elemental themselves? Is he going to miss—a friend? The wistfulness in the statement was disarming, but it hinted at much more to be explored. It also signaled personal feeling. Duel suspended. It was a show of honor and respect to let any personal talk be only personal, without applying it to the subtextual maneuvering. As such, it was also a test of empathy and consideration.

“And now, with a lovely view, we will have a discussion with no witnesses,” Silvermoon said, without even attempting to make it sound less ominous than it most certainly did.

Kordas was actively sweating, in the second mark of his occasionally tense leader-to-leader talk with Silvermoon. Boundaries were defined, expansion principles agreed upon, and baseline laws for nature, reserves, wildlife, and stock management were set. Exploration phases were agreed upon. Trade standards were agreed to in theory, dependent upon what yields would be. Expertise was agreed upon, to lead to an estrangement break with the Tayledras more or less completely in a set number of years, and updated according to need. Mutual-aid pacts and non-aggression pacts alike were reasoned out. Kordas bargained up defenses, pointing out that the Tayledras could—and were honestly expected to—build in any bypasses they would need to reassure them in case of armed conflict. Since the Tayledras weren’t threatened in any way by Valdemaran defenses, Kordas argued, then their boosting of essential defenses would only aid the Valdemarans’ survival versus regional dangers, and would ensure they lasted longer as a Tayledras eastern defensive partner. Silvermoon did mention, without explaining, that a fair amount of the region’s northeast was protected by a fellow nation’s ‘hard border,’ but didn’t elaborate. Silvermoon established early on, and bluntly, what Kordas knew, but dreaded: he outright stated that at the moment, the expedition were also hostages for the Tayledras. They were all bunched up—or split up—exactly as the Tayledras placed them, and even their methods of escape were inland and rested on foundations. Kordas had little to bargain with that the Tayledras did not have hundreds of already, and the Hawkbrothers could demand nearly any price of them if they wanted to. Fortunately, the Tayledras had some much different practices concerning goods and properties, and Silvermoon was, in a word, reasonable. Cultural and population exchange, intermarriage, and meeting events were agreed upon, freedoms of passage worked out, and a token set of tributes from Valdemar to their benefactors was worked out based around booze, beer, and bread as starting points. They even made agreements about the city-seeds, as Kordas named them—the utterly alien creatures that the Tayledras cooperated with to create actual buildings like the growing manor and the water-and-waste infrastructure for settlements.

Kordas was brow-furrowed, mentally compacting and splitting blocks of resources for the next round of their brutally honest state-to-state battle of wits, when his attention was split by a polite knock on a side panel. A pair of hertasi in what Kordas thought of as livery uniforms stood side by side at the lounge’s entry, on the far side of its threshold. That is, they seemed to be perfectly respectable hertasi in matching outfits, with knives and short spears sheathed on their persons, bringing picnic baskets. Silvermoon gestured and the pair entered, silently in that way hertasi had. Kordas was learning—when a hertasi didn’t want to be noticed, it just wouldn’t be. It could be unnerving, because even though a hertasi might be silent, it still displaced air when it dashed by or sprang up, and that felt like a spider on the skin. These two, though, made a point of being seen, then went about their work efficiently. They swapped out every glass and tankard for fresh, replaced the fruit plates and mint dip, swapped in a new coal for the chafer, and then, to his surprise, handed him and Silvermoon a sheaf of notes. In quick but legible script was a summary of what had been happening on the surface while they were down here—in Kordas’s case, it bore Herald Beltran’s ink-stamp. There was a list of resources and changes in their amounts, notes on health and manpower, and ten good bits of gossip. Yes, in the annals of history, it shall be forever recorded in Official Documents that ten beets are owed to Mrs. Gully by Goosecatcher Phobro in exchange for a midsized pie pan, and Hoggee Ferbrow has swollen ankles.

The hertasi duo suddenly lined up side by side, bowed in unison, and darted out.

“It’s a dilemma for them. They want to be unobtrusive by nature, but they also do not want to undermine trust during negotiations by slinking around unseen. So they overcompensate, and make sure they’re intrusive,” Silvermoon commented. “In a lot of ways, they are more Tayledras than the Tayledras. They are true friends. They remind us who we are when we forget.”

“That is one of the best things a friend can do. No matter who we are, we can go too far. There’s just no substitute for someone who cares enough to save you from yourself,” Kordas replied.

Silvermoon leaned forward, reaching for some sliced-up orange fruit, which he speared on an eating knife. “In that exact spirit, new friend, I’m going to warn you of some important things, with no pretense otherwise. Both warnings and threats. I speak for the Clan and the Tayledras in general when I tell you—don’t interfere with us. Keep to yourselves, because I assure you, we can keep you out of anywhere you think you want to go, and we prefer not to murder. We try to be kind, but when we work, we face horror and misery, and we will die for our mission. To understand that, you need to understand the Pelagirs more—and you will, in time, from a safe enough distance. For now, I will tell you directly—the Pelagirs is a system of evolving, self-optimizing entities that advance in sophistication every year. If we did not oppose it, it would become sentient, exceed us, and cover the world.”

Silvermoon was not joking in the least. He just let that statement lie between them like a corpse on a buffet that neither wanted to comment upon first.

Finally, Kordas broke the uneasy silence. “If you lose, we all lose,” he replied.

“Yes. It’s much more than romantic-quest material for a hero story. We have been dedicated, at great cost, to the same task for centuries. To interfere with our work is to interfere with our very identity. Take this into your consideration about the enormity of the Pelagirs threat: we were tasked with this because an actual Goddess didn’t think she could do it alone.” Silvermoon dunked crisp-edged venison into the mint dip, and after a few bites, continued. “I’d prefer that you be a strong ruler, for a very long life. What your settlers will become is not only your interest. I’d prefer you were like us in our outlook, but all we can realistically hope for is tolerance and distance. We are the best allies anyone could want—or dare—but we aren’t easy to stay friends with. We wish to be seen as more impressive, and frightening, than the monsters we oppose, because that stops the naive and exploitive alike from venturing into Uncleansed lands. Make us myth, Kordas.”

“I can understand wanting to control a narrative in official history,” Kordas replied, intrigued by the venison and dip. “Maybe more so than anyone,” he murmured. He took his first bite. Savory, with a tiny amount of bitterness from the charred edges, then cooling mint with a hint of something sharp. “I can direct storytellers to create a mystique around the Tayledras. You can be characterized as enigmatic benefactors of our earliest days, fiercely territorial and inscrutable.” He pointed at the rapidly emptying platter with his pinkie finger. “This is very good. I’ll barter for the recipe.”

Silvermoon laughed merrily. “If we surrender our recipes to you, what will we have left to bargain with?”

“We officially prostrate ourselves at your feet for your culinary guidance.” He paused to dab at his face with the same sort of leaf Silvermoon did. “It irks me to prevent any history being known, but some things are better left as mysteries. We can leave out details of just how much you’ve helped us.”

That seemed to satisfy Silvermoon. “I feel it’s best if the Tayledras welcome, help, and then just leave. It will strengthen your nation if you stress your own identity as robust, adaptable explorers, over being weakened chicks scooped into a warm nest by us. We like the feeling of being respected and honored for our good work, but in the past we have interfered too much with new tribes and nations, and suffering followed. The ones who opposed us, or went in dark directions, are all gone now. Their leaders were too short-sighted, and because they did not curate their own freedoms, they rotted and fell, to be absorbed into other, wiser nations. Now snakes live in their ruins.”

“What do you mean about curating their freedoms?” Kordas was not so sure he liked every implication of the phrase. It could definitely be taken in some pretty dark ways.

“Imagine a nation as a living creature, with an actual personality collectively made up of what every inhabitant feels. Courage, strength, history, happiness, and wonder, and the fulfilling pleasure of mattering. Curating your freedoms means taking care of what matters so it is not taken away by others. It’s looking after what you have control of in your lives. Live wisely, live well, be smart and honest with each other. Watch for the signs of rot, and heal what is sick. You are talented, Kordas, but you will not lead this expedition for millennia. Build a country that wants to be you, as the people think of you. Think of being that personality, as the ideal of every citizen. Living by certain virtues is powerful at that scale, and that generates more Goddess-aligned power than even praying. The country, barony, outpost, or tribe that can do that becomes an incredible force for primary magic. When that happens, believe me, it makes our work easier.”

“Ah, all right. So you mean, staying mindful of the signs that things are going badly, then taking care of them compassionately, IS like prayers on a national scale?”

“Those flavors of magic are pure in a way no other tones or flavors match. It’s a quirk of the universe—like what water can do.”

Kordas had to admit, Silvermoon lost him completely sometimes. It was as if Silvermoon had begun talking about the intricacies of making hawk-equipment, a subject Kordas knew nothing about. So he listened and watched how Silvermoon acted as well as what he said, and inferred an ‘equivalent’ meaning, based upon what of Silvermoon’s emotions he understood. It made him perceive conversation as a flow, which in itself was an expression of broader meaning. That’s why I like Silvermoon so much, so quickly. The man absolutely wants to engage, and once you’ve matched velocity with him, the conversation takes on artistry and rhythm. This was communication of complex, important ideas in ways that would never be guessed at in the Empire. It’s both sophisticated and personal. I can’t get enough of this. I know Silvermoon is probably dumbing it down for me, but it’s like the conversation itself is encouraging creativity and expression in how I respond.

“I approve of water—simply amazing stuff. What can’t it do?”

Oh, that blew it for the sophisticated conversation, Kordas. He’ll be so impressed by that big insight from your deepest soul. He caught himself nodding too much. He completely thinks I’m a dolt now. Save this, change the subject, now now now. “And then you use it?” Tactical failure.

“Well, something would be worked out then, of course, and incentives would be involved. Power is as appealing to the benevolent heart as it is to the villain. Placing that power with those most experienced in its uses simply makes sense. More of the work done in fewer years is appealing to us.”

Steady this crash. Call back.

“And you were telling me about the loving care of freedoms? Curated?”

“Yes. Curated, because one wants to present the very best, significant, and understandable examples, in ways that give them meaning in context as well as now. We have a ceremonial tradition, born with the Tayledras ourselves, of expressing our feelings about important things as messages for our descendants. It gives us the longest of views, the arc of our history in our ancestors’ own words, since our inception as a people. As years passed, our ways of recording information got better, leading to images lifelike in their appearance, synchronized to a copy of the sounds and voices depicted. It was as if we could talk to them, and a resurgence of interest in our origins made us more aware of who we were as a people. We leave messages for our descendants a few times a year now. I like to think I’ll be heard by Tayledras for whom the work is done, someday in the far future.” Silvermoon poured himself another cup of wine, and added some to Kordas’s own. “This talk with you will feature well in my next message.”

Kordas blushed.

“I will tell you of a warlord. No records exist of anything that he loved or cared about, except acquisition of power, from his apprenticeship on. He was brilliant, and he was, we suspect, incapable in the blood of being compassionate. He became a ‘Kiyamvir,’ the symbolic embodiment of a nation, and what you might call an ‘Emperor of many tribes,’ before he even lay with his slaves. He became known as Ma’ar. Just the single name. Ma’ar ruled by division, over scores of city-states, in a constant state of conflict with each other for reasons that changed with the breeze. His cunning, coupled with his indifference to others’ suffering, led him to become a conqueror by disruption as much as by arms. Within ten years, he had three dozen city-states loyal to him, with more absorbed every year.

“Ma’ar had a particular method that always worked. In each tribe he wanted, his agents would find a minority—around ten percent of a population. That ten percent would be relentlessly portrayed by Ma’ar’s agents as horrors, perversions, or outright enemies, until the remaining ninety percent felt like they were facing implacable, relentless foes out to ‘get them.’ In truth, the persecuted were never more than one finger of both hands, else they could have been effective at fighting back.

“When Ma’ar got the people of a tribe riled up enough, they would ‘cleanse’ their population of that ten percent—which by then the citizens and slaves alike thought of as an overwhelmingly powerful, evil, hateful, and unknowable force. That made the persecutors feel as if they’d struck a great blow, even though their beatdown was at nine-to-one odds, and few of them had done anything at all but passively agree. They felt like glorious, rebellious heroes of their people, taking down a vast network of evil that outnumbered them. Now that Ma’ar had made the population easier to direct, congratulating their obedience and bravery, Ma’ar would recruit, and place provocateurs in the next targeted city-states. They’d pick another enemy—almost always at nine to one—and repeat it, until every small group that might have opposed them was systematically ‘cleansed’ from what was now a large, united civilization. Doubters within that civilization had seen from the inside what happened to dissenters. Nine to one. A certain size of mob will always win, and that is hard for idealists or artists to comprehend. Ma’ar thrived by it.

“They regressed, that civilization. They lost momentum, joy, and the openness that causes a people to feel the discovery of new things as a pleasure, not an unwelcome incursion. Even their food became homogeneous.

“The survivors of Ma’ar’s purges fled, driven south mainly, and in defiance, they made beauty even from their persecution. Songs of salvation and hope, stories of love overpowering mobs. With their creations, they could confront despair by weaponizing sophistication and hope. You see, the people most likely to fight a tyrant are those who give a people their vibrancy. The ones who escaped had their revenge by bringing their emotional artistry with them, and they created more every year.

“One of our proverbs is, ‘Do not interrupt an enemy while they’re destroying themselves.’

“The refugees gathered around an inherently kind soul, an Archmage called Urtho. Urtho didn’t want to lead anyone but his hundreds of apprentices. He simply wanted to be a creator of wonderful things, but he answered their pleas and brought the strategies of a genius to oppose Ma’ar’s cunning. ‘Let there be love’ was the simplest summation of Urtho’s philosophy. That simple. That magnificent. Under him, they innovated. Ma’ar’s side just poorly copied, and fanatically pushed their violence.

“And in the end, it could stand no more. The mobs overwhelmed the refugees, and they fled again. Only this time, what was left of both their lands was two wide craters.” Silvermoon traced his fingers around a huge lake that Kordas now knew they called Lake Evendim on the map, and far south, a wider, shallower crater.

“The Mage Wars,” Kordas whispered.

“The Mage Wars, yes. The wound we’re healing,” Silvermoon answered. “And now you know why I warn you. You are refugees. A rock to the skull is not a sophisticated attack, but it does kill every time. Hate and fear are crude and cruel, and unenlightened, widely ignorant people are puppetted by appealing to their aching anxieties. It can come from within a people, too—and compared to armies, it’s even inexpensive. Rage, hate, and fear can smash through any defense made of rock and wood, and can cause a people to unknowingly give themselves freely to the very ones who have secretly terrorized them. The only times it fails in all of known history is when people have more understanding of each other than the hatemongers can defeat, and the education to recognize deceit. It can be stopped when it’s small, and it’s detected by listening closely to people’s problems. There are few things in life, Kordas, as deeply saddening as a lost possibility for something wondrous to have happened. In a few notorious examples, pre-Tantara, even when nations knew to watch for it in principle, sadly, the ones that fell were those who were too slow to act upon it.”

“And our new settlement is a haven for a new nation, and you see it as just as vulnerable.”

“Maybe more so, because your people’s loyalty is built around you. They’re no dedicated wildland explorers who would have come here anyway—they wouldn’t be here at all, ever, if it wasn’t for your leadership. They are here because they trust you. If you fail them, they’ll fail to become what you could make them. They would plummet in esteem from ‘chosen-by-a-visionary’ to ‘idiots-abandoned-in-the-woods.’ They would struggle, their numbers would drop, and if they survived that, little would be left among the survivors of the ideals you brought along.” He paused and shook his head. “I apologize for the blunt analysis, Kordas, but you all are what you are. A purely strategic, economic, and wisdom analysis has to be factual. And history shows that with every doubling of population comes a doubling of would-be Ma’ars.

“Don’t box them in by regulating freedom. Just make sure they know what truly counts, and help them have it. Ten people with good intentions and healthy minds can accomplish what ten thousand with torches cannot. You need to create standards of behavior and be certain they work in practice. Don’t be so sophisticated or detached a leader that you lose track of your people staying happy, because Ma’ar’s strategy I speak of always works. Don’t use behavioral laws as a means of diminishing your people, however odd they may seem. From oddity comes comparison, from comparison comes perspective, from perspective comes compassion, from compassion comes prosperity.” Silvermoon leaned in again to Kordas, to meet his eyes and make a direct, solid eye contact to deliver his vital ultimatum.

“I like you. I’ve seen deeper into your soul than you think, and so has the Star-Eyed, and so have others whose best futures depend upon what you do. I believe you can outmaneuver the dangers all tribes face, within and without, and you can make a lasting nation of quality. A year ago, we didn’t know you existed, and yet we Tayledras were here for a decade before, in the right place at the right time, to give you a place to begin. Only when your expedition Gated in did we realize it.” He gestured as if presenting the whole world as a prize in a tourney. “And we weren’t even shocked by it. Provident luck, amazing coincidences, unexpected solutions to thorny troubles, mistakes that secretly aren’t, and the discovery of or the placement of aid that might not matter for another fifty years. This is what life here is like. We know we are subject to the will of others, and we don’t do this work alone. Unseen powers connect everything. Accepting that as a reality may take you a while to embrace fully, but I know you already accept it as a concept.”

“Well, there’s no denying the unlikelihood of us being here, ‘us’ meaning the expedition’s flotilla and population. Yet here we are. One thing I am in awe of is the casual, almost indifferent way you Tayledras talk about and handle power that would incinerate us even in our best attempts.”

“Ah. That came up in our discussions about you all, you know. More than one of us wanted to make no contact with you at all, figuring that you would experiment with what was in this abandoned Vale and we’d come back and sweep up your ashes afterward.”

“Yes, pragmatic. You’re very relaxed with the concept of killing, if I may say so.”

“We kill a lot. Selectively ending lives is a part of the work, and once we get used to it enough, it’s always there in our minds as an option. With what we face, we have to be that way for our sanity. Being able to kill isn’t a fantasy for us, like it may be for some. We will kill, and we will be killed. It’s only the minority of us that die peacefully. But this—talks like this—this is what we crave.” Silvermoon paused, most likely going through memories of his own lethality. “A thing about people, Kordas, is that everyone loves to think of themselves as the hero of the story they’re in. We Tayledras, though, we live by it. We’re all raised to be heroes. Life is easy to come by—meat makes meat—so generating population is not an issue for us. We could triple our number easily enough. It’s the quality of that person that we care about, as a reality for the children that are already born. Fewer people consuming resources, highly educated, skilled in physical, mental, and emotional excellence, and the most fully themselves that they can be. The magical power, the spellwork, the Heartstones—we have them all, because we don’t permit poverty. There are never more of us than we can handily provide for. We like to be intellectual. Early education establishes the baseline for an entire society. Keep them smart, Kordas. Train everyone to read, cipher, and have general knowledge of worldly things, both adults and children.”

“I’ve been curious about that. Where are all the children, anyway?”

“I’ll tell you about ward-cities soon. This was productive, Kordas. Unless you’d like to do more than build treaties a while, we should get back to directing our charges. We must think improvements through well enough that they aren’t just built for now, they can be upgraded too. Plan for contingencies, with generations ahead in mind. A monarch’s sweetest crop is the quality of his people, so tend to it well. Don’t neglect the future, or it might just leave without you.

“How about a look at some forges,” Silvermoon suggested then, with a smile, “and we’ll address some of your other concerns.”

By the time they emerged, up another staircase that let out near the vegetable gardens and was concealed by a false boulder, he had seen everything that his people would need in the case of a siege. And he was confident that yes, all of them could fit down there, and fit comfortably, and so could enough of the herds that even if everything was lost, they could rebuild. He was also quite sure that for living quarters, given a choice between the tunnels and their barges, most people would be sticking to their barges. It was dim down there by human standards, and claustrophobic, because the tunnels were intended for the hertasi, after all, and humid. Of course, the “dim” part could be solved with mage-lights, but claustrophobia could not. The ceilings were just high enough for humans to walk down here. People as tall as Hakkon and Ivar would probably be touching the ceiling.

“Something I need to point out,” Silvermoon said, as they stood there blinking, waiting for their eyes to adjust. “When we move the Heartstone, we won’t actually move it. We’ll transfer most of the power from it to our new Heartstone. When we do that, we’ll leave just enough for the Veil to stay up for about three years. Presumably all of your people will have built themselves some kind of homes and won’t be living on their barges then.”

“Or they’ll have built something around their barges,” Kordas amended. “And if they haven’t, those things are supposed to last a hundred years, and it’s no worse in them than living in a very small cottage.”

“Well, when we do that, the above-ground portion of the Heartstone will crumble, leaving the root, somewhere about the level of the hertasi tunnels. I plan to have the hertasi create a room around it.”

Kordas tilted his head curiously. “The Heartstone is not all that far from the end of the building you are ‘growing’ for me . . .”

Silvermoon grinned and tossed his long hair. “Yes. Once the Heartstone is down, I’m going to start an annex growing that will hold the root in its basement. Not all my fellows are going to be . . . amenable to that. So I’m doing it this way, without bothering to tell the Council, and waiting until the last moment to give you access to it. As they say, it is easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

“You surprise me—” Kordas said. “That you’d leave us with an object that powerful when you really don’t know us.”

“Ah, but I do. Your actions coming here speak far more loudly than any entreaties could.” He smiled slightly. “I think you will be good stewards of this place, and I want to make sure you have all the help you need to succeed. I’m not entirely certain what you can actually do with the root, but it’s a powerful artifact on its own, and it does record everything that happens around it, and will continue to do so long after we are gone. So you may be able to use it to learn some of what we can do.”

Kordas took a moment to think about that. So far, as individuals, the Hawkbrother mages were the most powerful he had ever seen. Certainly Silvermoon would, by Imperial standards, be counted as an Adept. Being able to learn how they wove some of their magic? It would be priceless.

“This gift—” he stammered. “I just don’t know what to say, except thank you.”

“Oh!” Silvermoon suddenly said. “Oh, there is one thing more, but it has nothing to do with your buildings, the Heartstone, or the hertasi tunnels. Our mage Cloudcaller and your mage Wis have not yet worked out how to free the Truthseekers from their Doll shells, but as of this morning, they discovered how to allow them to communicate with their free siblings again.”

“They have?” Kordas felt his mouth stretching in a happy grin. “Silvermoon, that’s wonderful!”

“Well, yes, it is, because Elementals can talk to other kinds of Elementals, and once your Truthseekers can speak to their brethren, perhaps there is one of another Element that has the key to freeing your friends.” Silvermoon tucked his thumbs in the wide belt of his soft green robe.

“I truly hope so,” Kordas replied sincerely, as they left the vegetable garden and headed for a kind of airy, outdoor structure that the Valdemaran mages had taken for their own. What the original purpose had been, Kordas had no clue, but no one had objected to his mages making it more or less their headquarters. It had a roof to keep the rain off, but the walls were open panels full of vines, and the floor was a very soft and pleasant moss that apparently thrived on being trodden on. That wasn’t where they all actually lived—the Hawkbrother mages had their own houses, dwellings that they called ekeles, and the Valdemaran mages lived in their barges as almost everyone else did, but it was where they could gather and consult with each other. The fact that there was also one of those outdoor hot soaking pools that the Hawkbrothers liked so much very near the place was certainly part of the attraction.

The Hawkbrother Vale was so artfully constructed with carefully managed, lush growth that you could be within a few arm-lengths of someone and never know they were there unless they spoke. And even then, you would just make out a distant murmuring. So Kordas didn’t know how many of “his” mages would be in their pavilion until he and Silvermoon turned the corner into the short path that led to it.

Wis spotted him before he spotted Wis. “Kordas!” the mage called out happily. “Has Silvermoon told you the good news?”

“If it’s about making it possible for the Dolls to talk to the free vrondi, yes, he has,” Kordas replied. As a courtesy—as he had quickly learned to do here in the Vale—he and Silvermoon stayed on the “threshold” of the pavilion until they were invited inside.

“Come in!” The invitation came not from Wis, but from a Hawkbrother in light leathers with the texture of bark. This, presumably, was Cloudcaller. Like Silvermoon, his short hair was completely white, and his eyes were gray, the marks of a quite powerful mage. Kordas and Silvermoon crossed onto the moss, which looked so soft Kordas longed to take off his boots and walk barefooted on it.

“We’ve already set the spells in motion, using the messenger birds.” Wis whistled, and one of the brightly colored birds dropped down out of the rafters of the canopy to land on his outstretched finger. Kordas felt a silly surge of envy—as a boy he’d longed for birds to come to him spontaneously like that, but he’d never managed to make it happen.

Huh, but maybe it does, here. He whistled and held out his hand and a little bird with a curved, red beak the color of a ripe pear flitted to his finger and looked at him expectantly. Kordas lit up with delight.

“If you aren’t going to give it a message, pet it,” Silvermoon said, holding out his own hand, so that a red-and-yellow bird did the same for him. Silvermoon put his index finger up to the bird, which enthusiastically rubbed its face and neck against his fingernail, scratching itself. Kordas offered his finger to his bird, which did the same, and he felt elation as his childhood dream came true.

“So we used the birds as carriers for the spell completion,” said Cloudcaller. “More efficient, since they can go faster than humans can, and the Dolls don’t have to come off of their work for it. At this point, I think all the Dolls can talk to their vrondi kin. And any other Elemental they come into contact with.”

“Did you break something that was on them, or add something to the old spell?” he asked.

“Added something,” Wis told him. “We tried teasing out just the strand that kept them from talking to their kin and kind, but it was just too tangled up. By accident or design, those Impie mages created something that’s such an intricate knot that it’ll all have to come off at once. The frangible vessels the vrondi are held in are glass.”

Kordas frowned. That was not what he wanted to hear. This meant that it was going to take a lot of power to free each Doll, and doing so was going to release a lot of heat. And that meant he’d have to free them slowly and painstakingly, one at a time.

But we promised. And we’ll do it.

He quickly smoothed his expression into one of approval. “Wis, Cloudcaller, excellent work. Keep working on how we can free them altogether, but meanwhile, at least they aren’t limited to communicating only with their fellow Dolls.”

“I absolutely agree. Well done,” Silvermoon said warmly, and lifted his hand to assist his little messenger bird into the air. Kordas did the same. Off they flew with a whir of wings, chasing through the air out of sight.

“Now,” Silvermoon continued, “shall we discuss Midwinter festivities?”

Delia was alive with anticipation. Midwinter back in Valdemar generally meant that Kordas would fling open the manor, invite all the nobles in his Duchy to come and stay (some did, some didn’t, because he also threw open his festivities to people like the Squire), and there would be two weeks of celebration—one leading up to Midwinter, and one following Midwinter. During the daytime there would be a Midwinter Fair on the manor grounds, minstrels in the Duchess’s solar, the (generally unused, and closed up) Dowager Duchess’s solar, and the library, and more rambunctious sorts of entertainers in the Great Hall. All during the day, sideboards in the Great Hall had cold food laid out. Then every night there would be a festive dinner for all the guests (not a feast, not yet) and dancing and music afterward. On Midwinter Eve itself was the big feast, with full entertainments and a “vigil” till midnight. “Vigil” was not quite the right word, since it mostly meant staying up, being entertained, and then cheering at the stroke of midnight. Perhaps at one point it had been something more religious, or mystical, but the Emperor preferred all attention to be on himself rather than gods, and that had been the case for at least the last three Emperors, so Midwinter had gradually become almost entirely secular in nature.

The second week was devoted to more outdoor entertainment. By day there were hunts, skating, and entertainments at the Fair—and a lot of contests. Archery, knife and axe throwing, livestock competitions, races both on foot and skating, and the most exciting of all, horse racing. But not just any sort of horse racing. The competitors didn’t ride. They wore long, flat boards on their feet and were pulled by draft horses. Obviously you didn’t dare go fast enough to endanger the horses in any way, and there was a lot of hilarity when people lost their balance, or they fell into a drift, and the traces that attached them to the horse’s harness broke free of their belts. And it took a lot of skill, because you had to manage both the traces and the reins.

Now, these festivities were rather rural in nature, and shifting to them was designed to encourage the departure of those whose interests did not extend to the same sorts of entertainments enjoyed by the farmers and laborers. Food was presented at actual mealtimes, and they were served at “country” hours. Breakfast (far too early for those who were not “country” people) was the real feast of the day, and the last meal of the day (though most people would not realize it) was composed of artful presentations of what were, essentially, the previous week’s leftovers. There was quiet music after supper instead of raucous music and dancing. Drinking was not encouraged, and early bedtimes were. Things didn’t quite go back to “normal” until the end of the week, but the second week definitely had more of a tone of “relaxing with friends,” and those who were there to see and be seen generally found this sort of provincial entertainment . . . provincial.

Obviously a Hawkbrother Midwinter was going to be nothing like this. There were the decorations, for one thing, but she wondered what the heart of the celebration was going to be like. Delia was looking forward to seeing and experiencing it all.

Somewhat to her disappointment, Jelavan told her that there really wasn’t anything but decorations and perhaps some individual gift-giving until Midwinter’s Eve.

That was not to say that there wasn’t a lot of Midwinter frolicking going on among the Valdemarans, because there certainly was. But constraints being what they were, from the need to be careful about supplies to the lack of a Great Hall or any other places where there could be gatherings, even among the nobles who had followed Kordas here, the celebration was a lot more restrained and a lot more “provincial” than it had been at home. There were no big feasts, but with the help of the really good cooks, and some careful culling of wildlife, there were quite a few “small” feasts, things that took all day to cook and were served a bit later than supper usually was. The Hawkbrothers were not behind in offering good things as well, but there were a lot more Valdemarans than there were Hawkbrothers, so quite a bit of the Tayledras offerings were things like herbs and mushrooms and fresh vegetables and fruits from their gardens. Still it was winter, and fresh vegetables and fruits were prime luxuries at this time of year. And since there wasn’t much for the farming folk to do in the middle of winter, other than tend their stock, those winter games had been resurrected.

Thankfully, it didn’t appear that the Hawkbrother culture practiced intensive gift-giving at Midwinter, so she didn’t feel pressured to produce anything more than little tokens. She wasn’t any good at needlework, but she had hit on the idea of cleaning the fleeces still stored in the barges from when the culled sheep had been sheared. Virtually everyone was happy with cleaned and carded wool—if you couldn’t spin, you could trade it to someone who did for yarn, and if you didn’t need yarn, you could always find someone willing to take it in trade for something else. Cleaning the wool was very labor intensive and repetitive, but strangely soothing. And the lanolin from the wool made her hands the softest they had ever been. In return, she’d gotten a few little gifts, like new stockings and a couple of books—small things in comparison to past times, yet where would she put anything substantial? The storage-barge?

Finally the day arrived. The Hawkbrothers had kept their plans very much a secret, and Jelavan had been impossible to tease anything out of. “Sleep late,” was all they were told. “And don’t eat much. You’ll be eating all day, and staying up very late.”

So it was with growing impatience that Delia waited with the rest of the Valdemarans until the sound of a horn summoned them all into the Hawkbrother groves.

Groves which sparkled with tiny mage-lights and had decorations and food and drink laid out everywhere.

And that was just the beginning. As Delia explored the Vale, she discovered that in nearly every place you looked, there was something simple yet delightful to do, see, or listen to. Tervardi and Hawkbrother musicians in trios and quartets provided music the likes of which she had never heard before. Dyheli offered rides to children, on special saddles padded so one didn’t get bisected by their very sharp backbones. Other Hawkbrothers taught and played games, everything from simple things children could do, like ring-tossing, to a very complicated board game that used miniatures, stacks of books, and strange dice, which Delia didn’t even begin to understand.

“Try this!” Jelavan would say, thrusting something that smelled wonderful into her hand. “Let’s go play this game!” he would say as soon as she had finished wolfing the tasty treat down. And off they would go to a guessing game, or a quoit battle. There were no prizes for winning these games, but both children and adults were enjoying them anyway.

But it was what the Hawkbrother mages were doing—with the assistance of some of the Valdemaran mages—that was special. One had flocks of the little, brightly colored messenger birds doing tricks, singly and together. They fascinated Valdemarans and their cats alike, but fortunately, the little birds had enchantments to bodily defend against predators. Several junior mages accompanied storytelling with illusions playing out the scenes before the wondering eyes of the audience. Some created miniature fireworks. One made the flames of a fire itself dance to music.

Jelavan made sure she saw everything—at least as far as she could tell, anyway. With him scampering in the lead, she was pretty sure they explored every nook and cranny of the Vale in search of delights.

They stopped just long enough for a lunch, a sort of browse along a table crowded with vegetables and noodles in sauce, vegetables grilled and stuffed and roasted, vegetables mashed and served in their own skins, and an assortment of raw vegetables with sauces to dip them in. That was when Delia asked him a question that had been lurking in the back of her mind for some time. It had seemed odd to her that the hertasi wore anything at all. The dyheli and tervardi didn’t. And Jelavan had, multiple times, urged her to ask him anything, even if it seemed rude. So she did.

“Why do hertasi wear clothing?” she asked. “You don’t need to, do you?”

Jelavan hiss-laughed. “Of course we don’t need to, at least in the Vale. But we like to! We love clothing, we love jewelry, we love all things ornamental as much as our partners do! Maybe more! When we are working in the fields and gardens or anything else where we might get clothing dirty, we don’t bother, but the rest of the time?” He flung up his claws and turned, inviting her to admire a verdigris-green tunic and trews covered with tiny copper beads and leaves. “Who doesn’t like to look fabulous!”

Delia snorted. “Jonaton?” she suggested. And since Jelavan had been distressed earlier by one of Jonaton’s “fancy bags” and had rushed to the mage to offer hertasi expertise, he immediately erupted into laughter.

The entertainment continued after dark. Gradually some of the Valdemarans got up the courage to perform for their hosts, who seemed far more appreciative of what was played for them than Delia would have thought.

The grand conclusion to all this was just before midnight. The Heartstone, she was told, had been raised up from its usual home in the center of a domed building, and its stand held it a barge-length high now. It was awe-inspiring to think that around her was a society that felt so comfortable wielding so much power that it would use a Heartstone as a holiday decoration. Everyone gathered at the Heartstone for a grand display of much larger magical “fireworks,” which was capped by three of the Hawkbrothers in androgynous garb hanging from impossibly silky scarves suspended from nearby trees, who “danced” in midair, spinning, climbing, falling, twirling to the sounds of a chorus of tervardi singing and Hawkbrothers playing—it was all so beautiful it took her breath away. And just at midnight, the Hearthstone lit up like a fountain of colored lights, with streams of sparkling motes rising from its tip, shooting skyward, and cascading down its sides.

Delia could not bear to tear herself away, and she was not alone. But eventually, once that great finale ended, and the various entertainers began closing down and going to their own rest—usually in pairs or more, she noted—she did find herself stumbling to bed, hands full of sweet grapes, and eyes full of stars.