| |
––––––––
Alone with her father and the talking stone, Ferris paddled home. Icer they had sent ahead in one of the Eastbay canoes. Above their heads, Redburr winged heavily across the bright blue sky.
Durk did most of the talking. More than once he gushed on about how wonderful it felt to have finally escaped Ussene. Ferris concentrated on not crying. Tears for Skimmer and the pup were one thing, but public wretchedness over Reiffen was another matter entirely. Gripping her paddle till her fingers turned white, she fought to keep her eyes dry even as the growing breeze tried to tickle them to tears.
She wanted very much to hear what Durk had to say about Reiffen, and hoped the stone wouldn’t be able to prove his claims about her old friend’s new cruelty. But Berrel wouldn’t let Durk talk about what had happened yet. He wanted Redburr and the others to judge what the stone had to say for themselves, so Durk told them the story of how Reiffen had found him instead. There was something about bats, and guano, and a slave named Spit, and more about Reiffen not being very nice any more. Ferris found herself wishing Durk had stayed lost, if it meant her heart could remain unchanged.
“He cast me in the fire the very first time I opened my mouth after he found me.” The stone’s voice drummed off the planking on the bottom of the canoe. “All I did was ask how long it would be before he could take me outside. Believe me, nothing is worse than being thrown into a fiery pit, especially if you can’t be consumed. All I could do was scream. When I finally came out, you can be sure I thought twice about arguing with him again.”
“How could Reiffen take you outside if he wasn’t allowed out himself?” said Ferris, drawing some small measure of satisfaction from the thought that Durk was already proving himself wrong.
“That’s just it,” replied the stone. “He was allowed out. All the time.”
“He wasn’t a prisoner?” asked Berrel.
“No. And he often brought things back with him, which was how I knew. Once he returned with a small wolf. At least that’s what it sounded like. I’m not sure what your friend did with the poor creature, but the racket was awful. All that squealing and whimpering. He dumped me in the fire that time, too, and all I’d done was suggest he take his cruelty elsewhere.”
“Sounds like you spent a lot of time in the fire.”
“For more than I deserved.”
Ferris kept paddling. She knew exactly what her father was thinking. If Reiffen could come and go from Ussene as he pleased, why hadn’t he come home? The answer was obvious. He hadn’t wanted to. Which meant Durk was right. Reiffen really had tried to steal the nokken pups on his own, and wasn’t just following orders from the Three.
Glad she was in the bow where her father couldn’t see, Ferris finally lost the struggle with her tears.
She rubbed her eyes dry as the canoe coasted into the lower dock. The Home Guard had left Icer on the stone quay with Old Mortin, who had set out a bowl of ale. Icer’s whiskers twitched as he sniffed at the sour but interesting smell; the two of them looked to be well on their way to forming a fast friendship.
Upstairs, Ferris found Redburr on the kitchen table gulping strips of bacon, his sharp claws scoring the wooden edge of his perch. The fact that the Shaper hadn’t changed back to a bear suggested he intended taking wing again soon. Accompanied by the smell of frying butter, Hern flipped flapjacks on the stove, dishing out orders as well as helpings to those members of the Home Guard who had shown up hoping for a meal.
“Ferris.” She waved her flat spoon at her daughter. “Go change out of those filthy clothes. I’ll come get you when everyone’s here for the meeting.”
Her mind in a jumble, Ferris climbed the back stairs to her room and tried to sort through the horror of the morning. Her body felt empty, as if her insides had washed down the gorge with the nokken. Nothing was left for tears. Reiffen had murdered a friend, and tortured a wolf pup, and tried to steal nokken, most probably for reasons far worse than their fur. She had been wrong, and everyone else right; the Wizards had turned him after all.
She had been such a fool. All those times she had thought Reiffen was coming to her in her dreams, because maybe he thought about her the way she thought about him, and maybe thinking about her would keep him safe and sane through the long, terrible days and nights of Ussene; all those times she had been wrong. She had hoped that Reiffen nursed some memory of her deep in his heart, far from Wizards’ prying. A memory to help keep him alive, to help keep true the part of him that would always be Reiffen. The part he would never allow to change, no matter what.
The part she might love forever.
Her tears burst through once more. Beside the bed, the curtains bellied in the breeze. Ferris hugged herself tightly. Plainly Reiffen had never held her in his heart the way she had held him. Why should he? She had never said a word to him about how she felt. He had left before she was old enough to understand it herself. Now she had to teach herself not to care.
But it hurt so much to let go of her dreams.
By the time Hern knocked on the door, Ferris had stopped crying but still hadn’t changed out of her bloody clothes. At the second rap she told her mother to go away. For once she wasn’t interested in councils.
The door opened. Hern bustled into the room. “You know you can’t sit around sulking like this. You don’t want everyone downstairs guessing your secrets, do you?”
Opening the wardrobe, Ferris’s mother pulled a plain work dress off a peg. Her daughter sighed.
“I know. It’s hard.” The bed creaked as Hern sat beside Ferris and gave her a loving squeeze. Flecks of flour speckled her arms below her rolled up sleeves. “But now’s no time to be heartsick, dear. You should have prepared for this day a long time ago. We all knew it was coming.”
Ferris didn’t look up. “He killed Skimmer, mother. And a pup.”
“And most likely he’s going to kill a lot more. But you can’t dwell on the might-have-beens, only the here and now. Redburr says there’s war in the north and we all have to do our part. Otherwise a lot more nokken will die, and people too.”
Ferris stared at the floor, where just last night Reiffen’s ghostly presence had flustered the shining moonlight. “What can I do? I can’t use a sword. I don’t know magic.”
Hern snorted, refusing to believe her daughter could say such a thing, no matter how disappointed she was. “You can cook. You can sew. You can bandage wounds. Your father says Icer’s already doing much better, thanks to you. It’s not all about swords, you know, no matter what some men might say. Except for Avender, you know as much about the way Reiffen thinks as anyone. I’m sure the prince will listen to your counsel every bit as much as he does Redburr’s, to take back to his father.”
Ferris raised her face and looked at her mother. “Brizen’s here? He’s not in Bracken?”
“He rode back as soon as he heard. Nearly killed his horse, he was in such a hurry.” Hern waved her hand impatiently, trying to get her daughter to start undressing. Ferris unfastened the top buttons of her blouse. Her mother got up off the bed and returned to the hall.
“We’ll be in the map room when you’re done,” she said before closing the door. “There’ll be plenty of time for grief when Redburr and the prince are gone.”
The latch clicked closed. Ferris pulled off her dirty shirt and caught a glimpse of her puffy eyes and red nose in the mirror. Before putting on her dress she splashed cold water across her cheeks and toweled her hands and face dry. At least Brizen wouldn’t see how hurt she was by Reiffen’s defection. And, if anyone was going to pass judgment on what Reiffen had become, she at least would be present to listen to the sentence, no matter how crushed her heart.
Durk had already begun telling his story when she arrived, but she hadn’t missed anything she hadn’t already heard. The stone lay on a black velvet pillow on the long table in the middle of the room, everyone except the Shaper seated around him. Berrel occupied one end, a large map of the world covering the wall behind him, from the Toes to the Great Forest, the Blue Mountains to Cuspor. Hern sat opposite, by the door, with Prince Brizen, the chief forester, and the mayor of Eastbay between her and her husband. Redburr perched in the open window behind Ranner and the mayor, his claws gripping the sill.
Ferris slipped into the empty seat between her mother and the prince. Hern patted her hand. Brizen offered a glance of deepest sympathy, his long face as somber as she had ever seen it.
“I consoled myself,” the pompous stone was saying, “with the thought that, if ever I was lucky enough to return to the world of sunlight and polite conversation, I should dictate a play about my travels underground. Done in in Darkness, I’ll call it. Or maybe A Stone’s Throw.”
“Get on with the story,” squawked the Shaper, scratching at the sill with his claws. Ferris felt her mother wince. “We have other important matters to discuss besides your confinement.”
“If I’m to give you a true sense of how our old friend Reiffen has changed,” replied Durk in an injured tone, “you must allow me to set the proper mood. As I was saying, after I fell to the bottom of that crevasse, and really, it would have been better for all concerned, as I suggested on more than one occasion, if Nurren or one of the other Dwarves had carried me. Too much responsibility for a boy. And he would have been more sure of defending himself, too, without having to worry about my safety. I suppose he’s off doing a bit of farming, or maybe herding cows, now that he’s home?”
“Actually he’s patrolling the north. Or at least he was. Isn’t that right, Redburr?” Ferris turned guiltily toward the Shaper, ashamed she hadn’t thought to ask about Avender before. “He is all right, isn’t he?”
“He was fine when I left, girl. But we’ll talk about the north later. If Durk here ever gives us the chance.”
“I could go a lot faster if you didn’t keep interrupting,” said the stone.
“Then, please.” Berrel glanced around the table. “No more interruptions.”
“Thank you, steward. I shall try to be as brief as possible. Just don’t blame me if I’m unable to convey the subtler terror of the tale. Anyway, there I was, lost at the bottom of the world. For a very long time, I might add. Only rarely did I hear even the rustle and click of vermin, let alone the grunts of passing pasties, or the swearing of sissit. Finally, however, one of the slaves stumbled over me. I think she was a guano-picker, which, I’ll have you know, is the very lowest of the low in that place. Better even to be a stone, than a guano-picker. A nasty job, though I suppose somebody has to do it. She kept muttering about stinky, slippy bats, which is how I know what she did. I didn’t say a word, because everyone knows guano-pickers never get any higher than the very lowest levels of the dungeons, but she spotted me right off. ‘What a pretty stone,’ she said, which didn’t surprise me at all. It wasn’t the first time my trim, smooth shape has prompted someone to pick me up. The only trouble was there were holes in all her pockets, which meant I kept slipping through her filthy rags and tumbling back to the ground. She remembered to pick me up the first few times, but finally the inevitable happened, and she didn’t. I was lost again. And probably somewhere even worse than the first time. Luckily, I have lost my sense of smell completely since my transformation.
“After that it was another eternity before anyone came near me again. Finally, one day, I heard footsteps approaching, one pair booted and the other bare. You get very good at perceiving that sort of thing when the only sense you have left is your ears.”
Ferris started to say something about how anyone could tell the difference between bare and booted feet, but her father hushed her with a finger to his lips.
“They didn’t speak until they were quite close.” The stone’s voice became more dramatic as he crept deeper into his tale. Given an audience, Durk always returned to his past as an actor and unbridled ham. “Then one of them said they had gone far enough. I guessed he was the one with the boots. The other stopped without a word. There was a moment’s silence. Real life is never as interesting as a good play, you know. Then I heard the sound of a knife being drawn from its sheath. ‘Oh no, my lord,’ the second person cried. ‘What are you doing?’ That’s when I discovered she was a woman. And what’s more, much to my surprise, the same slave as had found me the first time. Though I suppose it’s only natural for her to have had some sort of regular rounds she followed in her nasty business, no matter how drawn out.
“‘I’m afraid I have to kill you,’ the man with the boots told her.
“The woman moaned and sobbed. I made up my mind to remain mute, knowing there was no telling what a murderer might do to a talking stone. But her next words overwhelmed my prudence. ‘Reiffen!’ she cried. ‘What have I ever done that you should want to kill me?’
“‘My masters want it so,’ he replied.
“I was astonished, to say the least, to hear her call him Reiffen. After all, how many Reiffen’s could there be? Especially in that place? Of course, it came as no surprise to me at all that Reiffen was still alive. It was the rest of you I thought were dead. Obviously the Wizards would have saved their prize captive after going to all the bother of catching him in the first place.
“At any rate, I was so astonished I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Reiffen!’ I exclaimed as soon as I heard his name. The sobbing stopped. The darkness went absolutely silent. Then Reiffen called out, ‘Who’s there? Show yourself! If you know who I am, you also know I speak for the Three, and I hold their magic as well. Show yourself, or it will go much the worse when I find you.’
“Of course no one showed themselves. I debated whether I should do something to try and save myself, and the poor woman too of course, but I didn’t think the trick I had used to fool the guards would work on Reiffen. Especially as he had been there the first time.
“But your old friend is a clever one. After his threat went unanswered, he quickly came up with the truth. ‘Durk?’ he asked. ‘Is that you? There’s nothing else in the tunnel I can see.’
“He began to scrabble among the rocks. I heard his boots scraping toward me. The woman, whom I later discovered had the singularly unattractive name of Spit, didn’t move a muscle, though I heard her breathing near the wall. Knowing he would find me eventually, I made my presence known. I may not have been as persuasive as Ferris remembers I was that time with the guards, but I think I might have had some small effect. At any rate, he didn’t kill the slave.
“‘You’re right, Reiffen,’ I told him. ‘It is indeed I, Durk, lying here on the cold, hard stone. Given the cowardly way you are threatening this poor woman, I can no longer remain quiet. Remember, sir, should you insist on your dark intent, your crimes will not pass unheard.’
“He softened his tone at once and asked how I had come so very far from the place I had fallen. I told him some slave had found me, only to lose me again. I thought it just as well not to let either of them know that Spit was the one who had brought me, and asked instead what he intended to do with the poor woman.
“‘Why,’ he replied, ‘I shall have to let her go. It would never do to kill her before such a convincing informant.’
“‘Oh, my lord, thank you,” she gasped gratefully. The floor scuffed as she fell to her knees.
“‘Or I could just leave you both down here,’ he went on more nastily. Spit began to sob again. ‘Maybe her ghost will enter a stone like yours to keep you company.’
“‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ I said sagely.
“‘No,’ he answered. ‘Nor would I have the pleasure of your interesting company if I did. But, if I do take you Upstairs with me, I run the risk of you telling my mother what almost happened. Stand up, Spit. I didn’t really want to kill you, anyway. You were Ossdonc’s choice, not mine. This way will be much better. Fornoch and Usseis would rather meet a talking stone than lose another slave to Ossdonc’s caprice.’
“He had found me by then. Picked me up and put me in his pocket. Once he mentioned the Wizards I wouldn’t have said another word, unless Spit needed my help again, of course. And that’s how I was found. There are many more details I have left out, but that’s the gist. You asked I be brief.”
“So we did,” said Berrel. “Thank you for your restraint.”
The breeze outside the window ruffled the feathers on Redburr’s back. “Did you ever meet the Wizards?” he cawed.
“Of course,” answered the stone. “The Gray used to examine me regularly every time he visited Reiffen’s workshop. Once or twice he even plucked me from the fire after Reiffen threw me there.”
“And Usseis?”
“I never met the White. Or the Black. I think Reiffen and the Gray wanted to keep me for themselves. Once, the Gray told Reiffen that the White would be most impressed if he could unlock all my secrets. But nothing else Reiffen tried was ever as bad as the fire.”
“What about Giserre?” asked Hern. “How is she? Did you meet her?”
“Sadly, no,” the rock admitted. “Until he brought me here, our friend Reiffen kept me locked tight in his workshop. I think he was afraid I would tell his mother what a complete villain he had become. Mostly I was alone. Sometimes he brought the Gray Wizard with him, to talk about Magic and War, but I stopped listening to their conversations after a while. It was always the same thing. Two teaspoons of batwing and a pinch of someone’s blood. It gets boring fairly quickly, you know.”
“This is all very well, but we still need to hear why Reiffen brought you here.” Berrel tapped a finger on the dark table, its polished surface reflecting the sky above the pines. “You said before he brought you deliberately. How do you know that?”
“He told me so, that’s how.”
“He told you?” asked the Shaper.
“He did. He planned on leaving me here all along.”
“Why?”
“He said he wanted to be certain everyone knew he was the one who stole the pup.”
“Why would Reiffen want everyone to know that?” Brizen looked wonderingly around the table. “You’d think he would prefer just the opposite.”
“He didn’t say. He just told me he wanted to make sure you knew.”
“Rubbing our noses in it,” squawked the eagle.
“But why would Reiffen even want to steal a pup?” asked the mayor.
“Experiments,” said the stone.
“Experiments?” The mayor’s face pinched in confusion.
“Not having ever seen them, I couldn’t say. But if they’re anything like what I heard him do to that wolf cub, it wasn’t pleasant.”
“Reiffen never tortured an animal in his life,” scoffed Ferris, unable to keep from defending her old friend even now.
“I hear he used to be friendly with the seals, too.”
It took every bit of Ferris’s self-control to keep from grabbing the stone off his soft pillow and hurling him out the window.
“That’s enough,” said Berrel. “You’ve made your point, Durk. Reiffen isn’t the boy we knew any longer.” The steward turned to the Shaper. “Now then, Redburr, you’ve been waiting patiently. I think it’s time you tell us your news.”
The bird picked at the feathers on his shoulder with his sharp beak. “As I said before, it’s war. While Reiffen was visiting us this morning, to show what comes of spending seven years in Ussene, Ossdonc’s army was marching south across the Waste. For Backford.”
“That’s why Reiffen acted so openly,” said Brizen. “And why he wanted to make sure we knew it was him. By having Reiffen strike at Valing, the Three show us no place is safe. Have you told my father?”
“I was in Rimwich two nights ago. One of my reasons for flying on to Valing was to find you. If it’s going to be war, the king wants you at his right hand.”
Brizen nodded. “I shall not disappoint him. Hern, Berrel, if I might trouble you for a fresh horse. I’m afraid mine is completely blown by the gallop from Bracken.”
“We’ll give you any horse you need,” replied Berrel. “But I’m guessing the rest of your escort will need fresh mounts as well, and I’m not sure we have enough for all of you. Besides, you might want to wait till we’ve decided our course of action in Valing. That way we won’t have to send an extra messenger to the king.”
The Shaper stretched his long neck, ruffling the soft feathers along his throat. “There’s actually not much for you to decide. You won’t send troops, because you don’t have any. And it’s unlikely, despite what happened today, for Valing to need to prepare itself for war. The Three won’t come after you until they’ve conquered everyone else. Brizen’s right. This thing with the nokken was just for spite.”
“What would you have us do then?” demanded Hern. “Watch our cows and sheep as usual and ignore the rest of the world?”
“You know exactly what to do, steward. You’ll watch the pass and send extra patrols into the mountains. And, should the Three, with Reiffen in the lead, conquer Banking and Rimwich, they’ll find Valing’s farmers and fishermen more dangerous than they think. But that’s not what I want you to do now. The Bryddin need to be told what’s going on.”
“Issinlough’s a long way from the Bavadars, Shaper,” said Ranner. “You’d be better off to fly there yourself, if you want the message delivered quick."
The prince and the mayor nodded at the wisdom of the chief forester’s suggestion, but the stewards looked more thoughtful. Ranner, sensing there was more to Redburr’s suggestion than he knew, waited for Hern or Berrel to respond.
“Is this the time for telling secrets, bird?” asked the latter.
“It’s why the secret was made.”
Everyone but the Shaper stared at the stewards. Ferris wondered what they could possibly be talking about. Valing held no secrets. Even when the Sword had been hidden here, the only secret had been where.
“It is the fastest way.” Hern looked at her husband. “Nolo said to use it if there was any sudden need.”
“Well, we certainly have sudden need.” Berrel nodded briskly as they made up their minds. “All right, we’ll do it. There’s a tunnel in the lower levels of the Neck that leads straight to the Stoneways.”
Had he said the tunnel led straight to Ussene, he would not have caused greater surprise. Ferris’s first reaction was to be outraged at the thought that she could have visited Issinlough any time she felt like it, had her parents only bothered to tell her about the secret passage. But, when she thought about it for a moment, she realized that was impossible. Issinlough was still far away, underneath Grangore, hundreds of leagues to the southwest. Even if this new passage led straight to the Abyss, it would still be a long trek through the dark to reach the mansions of the Dwarves.
Brizen nodded to himself, as if he wasn’t entirely surprised by the new development. Ferris wondered if there were other hidden routes to the Stoneways, with the Sun Road the only one everyone was aware of. It made sense. When she thought about how quickly the Dwarves had built secret tunnels through the Wizards’ dungeons, it was only natural to think they might carve other ways to the surface of the world as well. Other ways they would want to keep secret from the Three.
“I see what you’re suggesting.” Brizen leaned forward on the table. “One of us needs to descend this passage to warn the Dwarves. For all we know one of the other Wizards is leading a second army against Issinlough at the same time Ossdonc attacks us on the surface.”
“That’s not quite it,” answered the bird, “but you’re close enough. Whether there’s another army or not, the Dwarves need to be warned. At the very least they might be able to help us.”
“Very well. I’ll go.”
Redburr flapped the prince’s offer aside. “I already told you. Your place is with your father.”
Hern sighed. “I suppose I can go. Berrel has to stay in case there’s any fighting, but Sally can handle the housekeeping perfectly well on her own. She did fine the last time I went to Malmoret.”
“The task isn’t for you, either.” The Shaper fixed Hern with a steady eye. “Except for Nolo, the Dwarves don’t know you. Persuasion may be required to get them to move, and they might take it better from someone they know. Besides, I have the feeling Valing needs both its stewards at a time like this. And Ranner, too.”
“Then who’s your choice?”
“Ferris. She’s the one who’s been before. And we all know how persuasive she can be. Right, Ferris?”
Ferris’s heart lifted. A long journey was just the thing to help her forget about Reiffen.
“I think it’s an excellent idea,” she said.
“Of course you would.” Hern frowned, but said nothing to contradict Redburr’s plan.
“I think it’s brilliant,” said Brizen. “A much better choice than I would have made.”
“As long as no one asks me to go,” said the stone from the middle of the table.
“There’s no chance of that,” said the Shaper.
“You’re safe with us,” said Berrel. “Hern’ll find a lovely spot for you with plenty of sunlight.”
“Actually, now that I’m here, I think I prefer the kitchen. That’s where the best conversation is. As long as I’m not too close to the fire.”
The council ended with Ferris in a hurry to be off. Valing held too much bitterness for her just now. Later, after she had been away for a while, perhaps she could bear to return. Then maybe every time she saw the lake glinting sweet and blue between the mountains she would see something other than Icer’s raw wound, or Skimmer following the pup into the white crush of the gorge. In the meantime she would choose a more sensible course than the one she had been following. Castles built on solid ground were much more practical than those erected in the air.
She couldn’t leave as quickly as she wished, however. Berrel and Brizen had to write letters for her to take to Dwvon and Uhle, and Redburr wanted to make sure there was nothing else to be done before he let her go. Ferris returned to her room to pack and change into warm clothes for traveling underground, then retreated to her favorite spot among the pines to wait for someone to show her the way to the new tunnel.
Brizen found her a few minutes later. Ferris scolded herself for not remembering the prince had found her at this spot before, but, to tell the truth, she was glad he had come. At least some people stayed true.
“If I am imposing,” he said with a trace of his old hesitancy, “please bid me leave.”
“You’re not imposing,” she told him.
For a while they didn’t speak. Ferris sat on her flat rock; Brizen stood a little behind her, his hands crossed patiently behind his back. Beside them a squirrel swayed out over the side of the cliff on a low pine bough, its bushy tail brushing the long green needles as it tested the buoyancy of the branch.
“I’m sorry,” said the prince kindly. “You’ve always been Reiffen’s most loyal friend.”
Ferris made no answer at first. She didn’t want to defend herself, though she knew that wasn’t what Brizen was asking. It really wasn’t fair to let him stew however. He had come to comfort her, showing how good and faithful he could be. He had said he wouldn’t give up until he knew she loved someone else. Maybe now he would never know.
“Please don’t talk about Reiffen,” she said. “It’s too sad.”
“It is very sad,” the prince agreed. Plucking a bundle of needles from the tree beside him, he spun them between his fingers. The branch waved like a long, languid arm as he released it.
“You won’t start till tomorrow?” she asked.
“No. The horses need rest, and we’d only have to spend the night in the pass if we left this afternoon. And you?”
“I shall leave as soon as Redburr’s ready for me to go.”
“I wrote my letter.” Brizen pulled his needles apart one by one and watched them dribble to the ground. “Redburr wanted me to remind Dwvon of the recent friendship of our peoples and how we need to face the Wizards together.”
“That doesn’t sound like much.”
“That’s what I thought. But Redburr says that’s the sort of thing princes have to do. I must say, sometimes I wish I wasn’t a prince. Then I could go with you.”
“Everybody always wants to be something they’re not,” said Ferris. “I’m sure I’d love to be a princess.”
Brizen’s foot scuffed closer across the brown needles. With a bit of shock, Ferris realized what she’d said.
“You can be a princess a lot easier than I can not be a prince,” he told her.
“I don’t love you, Brizen,” she replied, trying to recover what she hadn’t even known she might let slip.
“I know.” He sighed quietly and looked at his empty hands. “I love you though. Very much. If I thought you could at least learn to love me...”
Another silence drifted among the trees. The squirrel dropped a broken pine cone to the ground.
“I do like you,” said Ferris.
“I know that. I hope you’ll—”
Brizen stopped in the middle of his sentence as a new thought entered his head.
“Are you saying...?” He looked at her with a slight sideways twist. “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but why are you willing to listen to me now? It was only two days ago you told me there was no hope. The only thing that’s changed since...”
He saw it all. Understanding spread across his face. “You were in love with Reiffen,” he breathed. “Oh, Ferris. I’m so sorry.”
It was the best thing he could have said. Ferris’s heart climbed another step up out of the deep well it had fallen into. How wonderful that Brizen’s first thought had been of her own sorrow rather than his new chance.
He made a little bow, the same sort of bow Giserre had taught Reiffen to make when apologizing. “I did not understand,” he said. “If you can possibly forgive my obtuseness, I will take my leave of you now.”
“Don’t go.” Ferris turned, half-reaching out to him. Losing two lovers in one day would really be too much. “I feel like such a fool.”
Brizen maintained his formal manner. “No, my lady, it is I who have been a fool.”
Ferris shook her head. “I’m no lady, Brizen. Just a simple woman from Valing. In that much, at least, you’re wrong. But I am a fool. You came to me honestly, offering to lift me up beside you. Like a silly girl, I was unable to appreciate your offer, or your generous heart. Honest love, and not the foolish fancy of childhood. I’ve been clinging to my dreams like a little girl. It’s time I grew up. I’m just sorry I didn’t recognize your gifts earlier.”
“I love you, Ferris. I always have, from the first time I saw you. I just wish you loved me.”
“I do like you, Brizen. More and more all the time. And you’ve liked me all these years, even when I didn’t treat you well at all.”
“I think you have treated me very well, moon-eyed schoolboy that I have been.”
She gave a deprecating laugh. “I treated you terribly that time I made you show me the hisser, and you know it.”
Brizen brushed her confession aside. “That? That was my fault, not yours. I was trying to show off. To show you I could be as brave as Avender.”
“And I was trying to be mean, because you weren’t Reiffen. Because you had all the things I thought should have been his. His kingdoms. His titles.”
“I would give them all to him in a minute,” said Brizen, “if you would love me. Only, I doubt that would be a very good thing to do right now.”
“Yes,” Ferris admitted. “It would be the wrong thing to do now.”
She looked up at the prince, who stood several steps back from the edge of the cliff. The lower branches of the pines graced his shoulders like a green mantle. He wasn’t as handsome as Reiffen, but he was kinder. And more noble, too. He would be a fine king, if Reiffen and the Wizards left him any kingdom to inherit. Kindness softened his face, where in Reiffen there was only fierce pride. Brizen would want always to do the right thing, the good thing, without any thought for himself. Reiffen might once have done the good thing also, but Reiffen would have done it for his own sake, not others’. She had been such a fool not to see it. Such a fool to turn down the good things offered her, for the excitement of first love.
The prince looked back and saw her studying him. She turned her face away, not wanting him to see her disappointment.
“Ferris,” he asked. “Do you think you might really love me some day?”
She whispered her answer into her dress. “I don’t know. I would certainly try, Brizen. You’re the finest man I know.” Gaining strength, she added. “If I didn’t, it would be my fault, not yours.”
She raised her face toward his as she spoke. His eyes sparkled, his mouth curled in joy. In a fit of boldness he bent forward to kiss her. Their lips grazed. Ferris had never let anyone kiss her and felt a little ashamed. Her kiss she had saved for Reiffen. But that was stupid, there was no Reiffen anymore. Taking Brizen’s face in hers, she kissed him back as fiercely as she knew how.
When she let him go, she was surprised at how her heart leapt and her blood raced. She could scarcely catch her breath. Brizen looked as if he might stumble off the cliff. Ferris pushed him gently to safety.
“You mustn’t speak of this to anyone,” she said. “Now is not the time for secret betrothals. We know the trouble it caused for Reiffen and Giserre. But, if things come out all right at the end of this war...” She looked down at the soft brown needles brushing the stone at her feet and almost blushed. “Maybe we can try again.”
“I adore you, Ferris,” he said.
“I know,” she answered. “Thank you. Now please go. We both have things to do.”
He kissed the hand she held out to him. Around them the trees stood solemn as courtly barons.
She sat alone on the rock after he left and thought about what she had done. Despite the kiss, and the desire she had felt, she still didn’t love Brizen. She loved Reiffen. Or she thought she did. It was all terribly confusing. She loved what Reiffen had been, the boy who dared anything, who dreamed great dreams, the same as she. The boy she had thought more exciting than anything in the world. So often, when she and Reiffen and Avender had come to this place, to look out at the White Pool and the river charging off through the valley, Reiffen would tell them what they would do when he was king. How they would drive the Wizards from the world and live in a golden age. Avender would frown and tell him not to brag. And Ferris would tell Avender to mind his own business and let Reiffen have his dreams. Dreams she told neither of them she shared.
But she was older now, and understood that excitement grew less attractive with age. War had come, and it wasn’t exciting at all. It was horrible.
What Reiffen had become was even worse.
For the third time that day Ferris bowed her face to her hands and wept for what she had lost. Above her head the squirrel leapt among the branches like a nokken racing through the waves.