Forgiveness
Part Two
Aurek followed the urgent sending, the throbbing in his head intensifying with each step towards his goal. He found Timmain where he had last seen her, inside the Eighth Shell, pacing fretfully.
“They have gone to Homestead,” Timmain informed him.
“I know. And pulled my lifemate along for the ride.”
Timmain waved her hand dismissively, drawing his gaze to the specks of blood around one fingernail. “She is in no danger.”
Aurek frowned. “Of course she isn’t – why would you say that?”
But Timmain didn’t seem to hear him. She brought her index finger to her mouth and resumed gnawing on the cuticle.
“Self-harm?” Aurek raised an eyebrow. “I’ve not seen that in a long while.”
“A minor compulsion. Many beasts will over-groom in times of stress. The benefit outweighs the harm.” Her gaze turned inward. “There are those who believe fervently that one must refrain from causing any harm. I know better. Pain is unavoidable, necessary, even beneficial… so long as the benefit outweighs the harm.”
“What happened between you and the Navigator?”
“A great deal of pain.” Timmain inspected the torn skin of her cuticle. “He called me heartless. Would you call me heartless, Aurek?”
He knew she wanted no comforting lies, which suited him well since he had never been adept at telling them. Aurek considered the question carefully. “You have a heart,” he said at length. “But it beats in a different rhythm to most.”
“My purpose was never to feel, but to remember: to record, compile, to calculate. A mistake can be a blessing, when it teaches us something. And guilt serves no purpose to one who can properly assess the situation. I have always made the best choices I could, given what I knew to be true. And whenever I have stumbled, I have endeavored to get back on my feet as soon as possible. Surely that is more useful than self-blame.”
She turned an accusing glance Aurek’s way. “Surely that is so!”
Aurek would not be discomfited. “I will not dance these steps with you again, Timmain. You are some thousand times my elder. If you truly believe in the Way you’ve chosen, then you do not need my reassurance.”
She began to chew at her fingertip again. Aurek snatched it out of her mouth. “But if it’s my honest counsel you want, then I must know all!” he said sharply. “About the Navigator, about the Moment, and whatever doubts have been quietly eating away at you all these years.”
Timmain only stared at him, her flat golden eyes revealing nothing. Aurek released her hand.
“As you will.”
He turned for the door. “If you knew all, Aurek, it would surely destroy you,” Timmain warned him.
“How convenient, then, that it has not destroyed you,” Aurek replied evenly. He waited for the door to telescope open, then climbed up into Seventh Sphere, leaving Timmain to her solitude.
* * *
Tamsin stared, open-mouthed, at the reunion unfolding before her. There was no denying the profound relief in Sylas’s face, the joy, the love. Everything that he had told her she alone inspired. My bond… the endearment on Haken’s lips might as well have been a blade in her heart.
She tried to muster her voice, but it came out in a thin whine. “Sylas…?”
“Your arm,” Sylas protested, nodding towards Haken’s stump.
“Hm? Oh… that. Nothing really. An old quarrel with Timmain. I hardly think of it anymore. But Sylas - it was you! The Navigator! I always thought you had merged with the spirit pool, but when I heard one Navigator had survived the crash… I hardly dared to hope. I searched and searched for you – why did you never answer?”
“I could not. I could hear nothing but the echoes of my own screams. She deceived me! She said my body was a prison I should escape… but the prison lay beyond death. I could join the others, she said. But they had gone on, and I could not find them. I could not find anyone! I spent a small eternity trapped in a tear of the Multitude!”
“But you escaped! How?”
Sylas seemed to remember Tamsin at last. He reached out a hand to her. “She found me. Her soul called to mine. We are bonded now. Do… do you know Tamsin?” he asked, almost sheepishly.
Haken nodded. His smile turned wry. “Windkin’s little sister. You used to visit us often in Oasis. What did he call you… the little tailed creature you liked to chase in the trees?”
“Tree-wee,” Tamsin mumbled.
“That’s it. So you rescued Sylas’s soul when no other could.” He sounded vaguely amused at the notion. But then his expression turned grave, and he bowed his head. “For that you have my eternal gratitude. And you know me well enough to know I do not offer that lightly.”
Countless responses occurred to her, but she blurted out the most pressing question on her mind. “You called him your bond. Do… do you mean… like a mate?”
“Our kind did not take mates,” Haken said. “We had stopped joining long before we left our homeworld. When we ceased to age and the planet could hold no more of us. Indeed, I was one of the last children born on the Homestar. We had no concept of kin and lifemates the way you do.” His voice grew uncharacteristically gentle as he recalled a life long past. “There was indeed… a soft and subtle bond, that connected us with love and acceptance.”
He looked at Sylas earnestly. “But if I had a taken a mate… it would have been Sylas.”
A hint of a blush rose in Sylas’s cheeks. Tamsin let her hand slowly slip out of his, and he did not seem to notice.
Haken’s expression turned sad. “But that was long ago.” He looked almost vulnerable as he ventured, “Perhaps I presume too much… after so many lifetimes… when we have since taken such different paths…”
“Not by choice!” Sylas burst out. “Not freely walked. I swear, little brother, had I known then what I know now I never would have let the flitrins cocoon me!”
“I must know all,” Haken said fiercely. “But first, you must let me welcome you to my Haven. And Chani – you must meet my lifemate! You will adore her!” Already he was steering Sylas away. “Now, I warn you, she is Timmain’s daughter. But once you look past that, she is truly remarkable. The first of our kind born following the stranding – come along, little treewee!” he urged as Tamsin hung back, her head still spinning. “You’re part of the family now. You know she’s one of my descendants?” he added to Sylas. “At least I’m fairly certain she is. Tyldak has my blood, doesn’t he, child?”
“I… I think his mother was a great-great-granddaughter of yours,” Tamsin confirmed.
“Isn’t that wondrous?” Haken beamed to Sylas. “You’ve Recognized one of my blood!”
Recognized. Tamsin nearly tripped over her own feet. Sylas saw and reached back for her hand again. This time she seized it in a death-grip and let him pull her along.
Why hadn’t she realized it sooner?
“Recognized…” Sylas repeated the word. “Yes, that’s what they call it now… the soul-bonding. Most apt.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Haken laughed. “For all the indignities we have had to suffer, I will concede the stranding did spark a fascinating evolution in our kind. I think you’ll learn to like this new existence, elder brother.”
He led them deeper into the great stone palace at a brisk pace. Tamsin had to take long strides to keep up. The stronger gravity kept her off-balance, dragging down her feet. But her spirit was rising steadily. Recognized. Of course. Everything made sense now. And everything would be well. All the pain and confusion of the last month would ebb away like the receding flood.
She squeezed Sylas’s hand tight. Nothing could come between them now. Not even the Lord of Homestead. Recognition wouldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t allow it. She had won him back from death’s grasp – she certainly wouldn’t surrender him to Haken.
* * *
“Any word from Haken?” Swift asked.
Sunstream slowly let his hand fall from his forehead. “Only that he is reuniting with family and does not wish to be disturbed.” A quizzical furrowed crossed his brow. “He sounded… happy. Happier than I’ve heard in a long time.”
“A happy Haken. That’s… worrisome.”
“What’s worrisome?” Dewshine asked as she and Tyldak joined the trio of Swift, Sunstream and Vaya under the shade of the crystal tree. “Does anyone know where Tamsin is? She won’t answer any of my sendings.”
“I told you: she probably wants some time alone with her High One,” Tyldak muttered under his breath.
“They’re with Haken,” Swift explained. “And it sounds like Sylas and Haken are old friends.” She considered a moment. “Should have guessed, really. I thought the rod up his ass seemed familiar.”
“Vaya…?”
Vaya turned to see Sust approaching the tree with a puzzled expression.
“What are you doing here?”
She grinned and spread her arms wide. “What? Can’t a mother miss her fawn?”
He stood motionless as she enveloped him in a hearty embrace. When she stepped back, he eyed her with a skeptical smirk reminiscent of Skot.
“You got caught in a Palace-jump, didn’t you?”
“I got caught in a Palace-jump,” Vaya confirmed.
Sust laughed and hugged her back. “Thought so.”
“Are you going to take the Palace back right away?” Vaya asked, turning back to Sunstream.
He shrugged. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t stay at least until tomorrow. And Skywise has already gone off to find Cricket. You and Sust go ahead. I’ll send to you when I know more.”
“Suppose you’ll want to visit the turtle too,” Sust mock-grumbled, as he led Vaya away.
“Later. Today, you have me all to yourself. And I promise to fuss over you like a brooding quail, and utterly humiliate you in front of your lifemate and daughter. And you and Coppersky can stay up late arguing over who has the more tiresome mother.”
Sust tried for a stoic expression, but he couldn’t quite supress the stirrings of a grin of triumph. “Good.”
“Guess we’re staying put,” Swift remarked to Dewshine. “Unless you need to get back to the Holt–”
“Not without Tamsin,” Dewshine said fiercely.
“I figured.” Swift looked up at the crystal leaves overhead. “I think I’ll go for a walk… see what’s new since I was last here. I’m pretty sure I remember the way to Cholla’s house. You’ll send if you hear anything?”
Sunstream nodded.
Swift headed off towards the multi-terraced stone buildings, swaying only a little under the extra gravity. Dewshine leaned up against the stone tree-trunk for balance. “My head…” she whispered, massaging her temples.
“The air’s thinner inside the Palace,” Sunstream volunteered.
“I’ll be all right…” Dewshine insisted. “The shade helps. Ugh… I don’t know how Cricket does it, hopping back and forth between our world and this one all the time.”
“It’s the hop back that’s hardest. Get used to the thicker air and stronger worldpull, and once you get back to Abode you feel like you’ve been trampled by a herd of shagbacks.”
Dewshine looked at Tyldak forlornly. His locksending was gentle but firm. **If Tamsin and her Navigator decide to stay here, then we will adapt. Just as we would have if she had gone to the College to train with Aurek. Just as we did when Windkin left us.**
She nodded, even as she wanted to scream, But it’s not the same! Windkin had always been a wanderer. But Tamsin was meant to be the wolf who never left her birth pack. They had named her after the new beginning of the Holt, and she was meant to be a part of it forever. But her daughter had been steadily slipping away from her, and now Dewshine feared she would lose her forever.
She thought of her nightmares with a shudder. The repeating dream of chasing after her missing cub within the warren of Blue Mountain… it had been a warning she had failed to heed. And now she was here, looking up at great stone towers shaped by Gliders, wondering which one held her child.
“Come,” Tyldak said. “Let us find a place where we can sit.”
She thought he meant to lead her off to one of the stone peristyles, but instead he flew up to one of the stone branches with three quick beats of his wings. Settling in a fork in the branches, he beckoned her up. Dewshine smiled ruefully and began to scale the trunk.
Her ascent was harder. Her fingers and toes found purchase on the stone easily enough, but coordinating her limbs in the harsher gravity took time. Eventually she managed to haul herself up alongside him.
“How did you get up here so fast?” she huffed breathlessly.
“The thicker air helps,” Tyldak said. “Cricket told me he has been able to glide on silk wings here, without even a wisp of magic to hold him aloft.” He slid an arm around Dewshine’s slender shoulders, drawing her close. “Later, perhaps we could go flying together.” Sensing her reticence, he added in locksending, **It will be all right, Lree.**
**How can you know that? She’s Recognized a High One! A High One out of time – Timmorn’s blood, if Sunstream tells it true, our kind had only just left the Homestar the last time he opened his eyes! He’s… as far removed from us as we are from… what?! What must he think of us? What must he think of her?**
**Perhaps the same thing I thought of you, when eyes first met eyes. Terror at this wild little soul before him… tempered with the dawning realization that this frightening, alien creature is exactly what his own soul has always needed.**
She looked at him thoughtfully. **You were repelled by the wolf in me. And I… I was afraid of the High One I saw in you. You seemed to be made of stars. And I knew how you saw me… small, corrupted, filthy… I knew my only choices were to be as ashamed of my wolf-self as you were… or to fight back with every fiber of my being.**
**It was… difficult at first,** Tyldak admitted. **But I learned to love the wolf in you. I can still remember, when you asked Rain to remove your wolfblood, I so feared I would never see the beast in your eyes again. But it’s still there… only… with a little less fur.**
She was in no mood to be placated. She examined a starstone leaf fixed to a delicate stone twig. Somewhere in the distance, someone was shouting “Hey, Wolfriders! Who said you could climb our tree?”
**I fought. But Tamsin’s not a fighter. You know her – she likes everything gentle and soft. She chose the bow because she cannot bear to kill at close range. She’d show throat to a sparrow. So what will she think, if he looks at her the way you once looked at me? She already curses the world for being too harsh… will she curse herself for being too small?**
**We have done our best. We have raised her to be proud of all she is. Now we must trust in her choices.**
Dewshine nodded sadly. A pinch in her belly reminded that her she had not eaten since the night before. Perhaps that was the true cause of her headache.
“Wolfriders! I know you can hear me! Out of Lord Door’s tree, now!”
“Who is she calling a Wolfrider?” Tyldak grumbled.
“It’s all right,” Dewshine said. “I think I’m ready to go back to the Palace.”
She climbed down from the tree, while Tyldak glided down to the ground. Dewshine caught a flash of color out of the corner of her eye and turned to see old Minyah tapping her foot irritably.
“Sorry,” Dewshine mumbled, with a wave of the hand.
Minyah hmphed and returned to her promenade, a basket of strange vegetables on her arm.
“Do you suppose they have meat in their larders?” Dewshine asked Tyldak. “Real meat, not that smoked and breaded stuff?”
“You mean raw meat? I’m sure there’s a few cocoons we can raid.”
The Palace doors stood open and unattended, beckoning them in. Dewshine remembered her many visits to Oasis, when the Palace’s arrival would always draw an eager crowd of Sun Folk, crowding into the entryway to greet the newcomers. But she supposed the Palace had lost some of its luster to the elves of Haken’s new colony, now that they had their own starstone ship.
Tyldak let her go first across the threshold. She stepped inside the Palace… and froze at the sound of a bright, brittle laugh. The very laugh that had haunted her dreams off and on for ten thousand years.
No… no, she’s not supposed to be here! They didn’t tell me she’d be here!
She had changed much since the days of Blue Mountain That Was. Yet she hadn’t changed at all. The same tall, slender frame, with skin as pale and smooth as milk; only now she draped her limbs not in black furs, but in lavender moth-fabric, trimmed with long feathers. The same thick, lustrous black hair, now cropped at her shoulders. She wore flowers in it.
The same laugh that chilled Dewshine to the marrow. And as she turned from Sunstream, alerted by the Wolfrider’s gasp, the same eyes narrowed in ruthless curiosity.
Then she smiled, a bright and seemingly guileless parting of her lips. “Tyldak!” she exclaimed. “It’s been too long. And look, you kept the wings I gave you!”
As Tyldak stared back, at a loss for words, Winnowill turned to his lifemate. Please, Dewshine thought desperately. Don’t let her remember. She kept her eyes lowered, afraid to meet Winnowill’s searching gaze.
“And… Dewshine? It is Dewshine still, isn’t it? I can never remember which of you take new names and which don’t.” She glanced over at Sunstream. “It’s very confusing.”
“I barely changed it,” he protested.
“You ought to be grateful for what you were given.”
“I was given it. It was Mother who renamed me!”
“And who gave her the right, anyway? Suppose you liked your old name?”
“It. Barely. Changed.”
“Very glad to see you both,” Winnowill told Tyldak and Dewshine. Her smile turned teasing. “I’m a little hurt you weren’t at my resurrection, Tyldak, but I suppose you’ve your own obligations–”
“What are you doing here?” Dewshine blurted out. “I thought you had gone to live with Two-Edge in his new kingdom.”
“Oh, New Mountain’s only a short zwoot ride from Haven. I’m here most days.”
“New Mountain?” Sunstream asked skeptically. “They’re really calling it that?”
Winnowil smiled. “My grandson thinks he’s a wit. They only meant to humor him at first, I think, but the name rather stuck. Tyldak, you and Dewshine should come visit. Two-Edge has rebuilt all of my chambers – complete with a mechanical Door. It’s a clockwork doll that sits next to the door and connects to a counterweight. I only need to shake its hand and the door opens – no magic at all!”
“What does the real Door think of that?” Dewshine challenged.
“Fenn? What would it matter to him?” Winnowill seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Have you forgotten what you did to him? To all the Gliders?”
Tyldak laid his hands on her shoulders, silently imploring her to stop. But Dewshine couldn’t. She had to know. Please, let her have forgotten, she thought again.
“Some days I would dearly like to,” Winnowill said steadily. “But I do not dare. To forget would be to risk repeating my many mistakes… and would be an added insult to those I have wounded. Yes, I have hurt many people. Including you and yours. Do not think you can add to my shame with a few sharp words, Wolfrider. I am what I am, and I did what I did. I will not ask for your forgiveness – I know I have no right to it. Come to New Mountain. Or don’t. I cannot compel you.”
Yes, you can, Dewshine thought. You still can, and you’re making sure I know it.
“Perhaps we will speak again, Sunstream,” Winnowill said. “But for now I’ll take my leave.”
Dewshine watched her go. She held her breath, waiting until the receeding figure disappeared completely.
**Lree,**
She almost jumped at the sound of her soulname. She spun on Tyldak, baring her teeth in a snarl, before she caught herself.
* * *
Haken’s chambers within the Ark itself were just as opulent as Tamsin would have expected. He and Sylas settled into padded chairs piled high with cushions, while Tamsin nervously accepted a cup of cider from Chani with an uncertain smile. After the first shock of meeting the Navigator, the Lady of Homestead seemed completely unruffled by the situation. Indeed, she was almost as delighted as Haken himself. Like Tamsin, she could not help but notice the affection between the two: smiles, low laughter, and fleeting, almost unconscious caresses. None could have blamed her for showing jealousy, but instead she beamed with joy.
“Did you… know about him?” Tamsin managed to whisper, as Chani passed her the drink.
“Oh yes.” Chani poured herself a cup as well. “Not in great detail, of course. From Haken’s perspective, it was all ancient history. But I knew there had been another Firstcomer... one Haken had loved dearly… and lost – first to the endless sleep of the Navigators, then to the stranding. He didn’t call him Sylas, of course. His original name is quite unpronounceable in this language. Haken always called him Forethought.”
Forethought. It suited him, Tamsin thought. Like the others, Sylas held an enameled cup, but his held only water. Tamsin watched as Haken coaxed him to attempt swallowing again. “There… slowly… don’t overthink. It will become effortless – you’ll see.”
“Doesn’t it… concern you?” Tamsin whispered urgently. “Their… bond… and what – what it means for yours.”
Chani gave Tamsin a puzzled frown. **Did no one ever teach you love could be shared? I thought you Wolfriders shared excessively.** She gave Tamsin a pat on the shoulder, equal parts tender and amused. **Don’t fret, child. They are bonds, but we are their lifemates.**
She took her cup of cider and sat down beside Haken, easily rejoining the conversation. Tamsin supposed she could afford to be complacent. She had helped Haken build nations, and raise children. Their bond was solid.
Ours will be too, Tamsin thought stubbornly. I can give him what Haken can’t.
“You returned to your shell long after death, too,” Sylas remarked to Chani. “Tamsin told me of you. The love you bore your mate, allowing you to cross back to the physical world. I should have suspected then, that Haken was the one I knew as Passion. Even in his childhood he had a rare gift for inspiring depths of emotion most of our kin could not fathom.”
“You knew Haken as a child?” Chani nearly squealed with delight. “Oh, you must tell me all about him.”
“Children on the Homestar were not… quite as children here,” Haken pointed out. “Less Naga... more Winnowill – our new Winnowill, I mean. Oh, you must meet our daughters, Sylas. Winnowill has only just returned from the spirit realm herself. And Melati came from humble blood, but she has the spirit of the Ancients – in her, I see the proof that our race has nearly regained all that we lost.”
Sylas scowled. “How can you say that? All but the most powerful are bound to one form, and it is a fragile, imperfect shell. You are all enslaved to the basest of needs to sustain your flesh. You are even enslaved to the starstone – I see how dependent everyone is upon it to augment their magic. We were once creatures of fire and light. We donned only the shells that suited us. We were not imprisoned by them. Now…” he looked at Tamsin forlornly. “Now I see generations born into captivity, so content with their cages that they fear true freedom.”
“Like the freedom of the Navigator’s Circle?” Haken challenged.
“No! That was a trap. A forced symbiosis that slowly blinded us, hobbled us as much in spirit as you have all been hobbled in body. I told you – I did not know what would become of us. I thought I would remain myself, that we would remain as we were. But we nine became cages for each other – and not by accident. I have had an eternity to understand the hand behind that. As I understand the hand behind this… this debasement!”
Haken nodded gravely. “You sound as I did, a spiral ago. I forget, for you the stranding happened so recently. I cursed my fate just as you did. I cursed that two-mooned world, that drained us of all but a whisper of our magic. For years, I despaired. And then I found my purpose again, and I began to rebuild.”
He glanced at Chani warmly. “I could not have done it alone. There were many who stood with me. Most have left me, and not all by choice. But by their many sacrifices, we began to climb out of the dirt and back towards the stars. I know we are still far from our goal. But I have had to learn patience as Haken. And though I know you may not believe me… there was some worth in all the struggle. I learned many things, not least that no matter how debased our shells might become, our spirits can endure.”
“You sound like Timmain,” Sylas said with distaste.
Chani burst out laughing. “Oh, Sylas. Forgive me. But those are words I never thought to hear!”
“Yes… well… I have learned many lessons from her as well,” Haken grumbled. He flexed his stump. “Most of them unwanted. But I comfort myself in knowing that in the end… I won the war.”
“War?” Sylas repeated. “There was a war?”
“A great one. A war for the hearts and minds of our race. A war for our future path. She fought for what she calls the worldsong – the small, self-limiting causal loops of subsistence. She saw our stranding as a gift. She saw our past in the stars as purposeless – she believes we needed a purpose imposed upon us – the very limitations you decry. I know better. And here I am, lord of an entire world, with a homeshell grown of fresh starstone. And where is Timmain?”
“Inside a mountain,” Sylas answered. “In a den of her own starstone.”
“In an exile of her own making,” Haken dismissed. “She is Memory, and condemned to live in the past. The future belongs to me and mine.” He patted Sylas’s knee. “That includes you, now. Whatever place you desire in my new world – it is yours.”
“So the child has become the mentor,” Sylas remarked archly.
“If… if you want your own world, I’m sure we can arrange it,” Haken added quickly. “Would you like to take the stars again? You can have the Ark. I can grow a new one in a matter of years. Or… if it humbles you too much to accept gifts from a child, I can show you how to grow your own.”
“I’m sure Tamsin would like a say in this, my lord,” Chani said, with a pointed sweetness.
“Hm? Oh, yes. What are you doing over there, little treewee? Come join us. Does she always lurk like that?” he asked Sylas.
“She likes to study her surroundings before deciding to act,” Sylas said, with an evident fondness that lifted Tamsin’s spirits. “A skill I tried to teach you, as I recall.”
“You find her a more amenable student, then?”
“Haken, behave,” Chani muttered.
“I find her remarkable,” Sylas said honestly.
“But perhaps you will consider staying here, Tamsin,” Chani suggested. “At least until Sylas finds his legs. Learning to live inside a shell again is enough of a shock; why add the extra burden of the World of Two Moons?”
“Abode is not a burden. It’s harder here – the air, the worldpull.”
“But what of magic?” Haken asked. “Perhaps it is all the same to you. But to powerful magic-users, Abode is a stone about our necks.”
“The air will cease to trouble you after a few days,” Chani said. “The worldpull too. And your magic will only grow stronger.” She smiled knowingly. “Some time and patience, and you’ll find yourself capable of more than you ever thought possible. Even flight.”
Tamsin’s eyes widened. Chani went in for the kill. “In the time we’ve been here, so many of the old powers have been rediscovered. Young Greenflame is flying like a true Glider now. I see no reason you couldn’t pick it up… why, by the time your child is born.”
“Child?” Sylas scowled.
“You must have your child here,” Haken pressed. “Our own daughter Melati had a daughter shortly after we arrived. Truly, a worthy heir to the Firstcomers: sending from within the womb, born fit and healthy months before her time, now growing stronger than any child would on that wretched World of Two Moons.” He grinned. “Your child could be her agemate. They could grow up together. Imagine the things they might accomplish by the time they’re grown.”
“Of course you’d want to stay close to your own family,” Chani said to Tamsin. “But there’s no reason why they could not come and live here too… at least in the beginning. If not in Haven, then in the little holt Littlefire has founded. They could use a few more hunters, I believe.”
“Child – what child?” Sylas interrupted. “We have no child – nor do we intend to make one!”
Tamsin looked up at the Navigator in alarm. “Sylas…”
Haken laughed. “Doesn’t matter what you intend. Recognition has other plans.” He paused, observing Sylas’s complete bewilderment. “You… do understand what Recognition entails? It’s more than a soul-binding. It sparks conception. When you and your treewee next join–”
Tamsin felt her face burn. They’d never even joined in dreams; somehow, kisses and cuddles and teasing caresses had always seemed to be more than enough.
Sylas’s eyes were growing ever wider. “No!” he bellowed, springing to his feet.
“Sylas, it’s what happens,” Tamsin said. “It’s how we create new life.”
“You spoke of that once before. And I told you I could not fathom it!”
“It’s a shock at first,” Haken allowed. “But is it one of the gifts of this existence–”
“Why? To make a new soul, only to condemn them to the uncertainty of this life – the hardship, the suffering, the constant indignities?”
“It’s what we do, Sylas,” Tamsin protested softly. “It’s what every creature does.”
“We didn’t! We had progressed beyond that! We knew no death. We had no need for new life.”
“Most find they want new life,” Haken said. “Imagine it: a new soul born of you and your Tamsin. Don’t you hunger to meet such a creature?”
“No! My soul and hers are enough! I tell you, I will not do this! I cannot!”
“You don’t have a choice,” Tamsin murmured, close to tears. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Don’t tell me that! There is always another path! I swear… I will return to the spirit world before I will sire a child!”
* * *
**Mother, Father, come quickly! It’s – oh, it’s all gone so wrong!**
Dewshine chased her daughter’s sending through the unfamiliar passages of the Ark, Tyldak following as swiftly as his cumbersome wings would allow. When Dewshine came to a closed door, she beat on it with her fists until it opened on an opulent sitting room.
Haken and Sylas sat together, foreheads almost touching, eyes closed. Dewshine could feel the static in the air from their mutual sendings. Tamsin was sobbing as Chani stood behind her, awkwardly patting her shoulders. The Firstborn all but shoved Tamsin towards Dewshine in relief.
“Ah, there’s your mother!”
“Cubling, what is it?” Dewshine asked, as Tamsin crushed her close. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”
Tamsin could only manage a nod and a whimper of assent. And in thoughts and raw emotions, she shared what had wounded her so.
“Ohhh…” Dewshine murmured, as she understood. “Oh, but you musn’t blame yourself.”
“That’s what I said,” Chani said, with a tartness she seldom allowed to slip into her voice.
“H-Haken’s trying to explain it to him,” Tamsin gulped out, indicating the two High Ones with a sweep of her hand. “He… he’ll listen to Haken but he won’t listen to me! He says I don’t understand!”
“You don’t,” Chani remarked. When Tamsin and Dewshine both glared at her, she huffed, “None of us do. None of us can! Savah’s blood – he’s spent two hundred turns of the spiral in spirit form! No one’s ever come back to a body after so long, much less to Recognition! And you’re surprised he’s overwhelmed by it all?”
“Did he says why he doesn’t want a child?” Tyldak asked, after a quick locksending with Dewshine caught him up on the crisis.
Tamsin sniffled and wiped at her nose. “He says life lived in flesh is only suffering and pain… and only a monster would willingly create another soul to endure it.”
Tyldak hummed thoughtfully. “And yet he came back to his flesh.”
“Because I asked him to!” Tamsin lamented. “Because it was the only way we could be together. Timmain’s right: I forced him back into our world when he wasn’t ready. He wanted me to join him in the spirit realm–”
“He what?” Dewshine cried.
“ –but I wouldn’t. And I couldn’t be content with just dreams.”
“Of course not,” Chani said. “And neither could he, for all his protests. You were both in the early stages of Recognition, I should think that much is obvious by now.”
“We were in love. Or… at least I was!” Tamsin looked at Sylas bleakly. “I thought I could teach him to live again… but he doesn’t want me…”
“He was fawning over you like a lovesick pup!” Chani countered, exasperated. “He wants you well enough, Wolfrider. He just doesn’t want your child.”
“Take heart,” Tyldak told Tamsin. “It will work itself out, believe me. Your mother’s and my first Recognition was not wanted either. Not the child, not the binding of souls, not so much as a single meeting of gazes. If we could come through it all the stronger for it, you two will. After all, you already have love. Dewshine and I had only emnity.”
“I thought a child would complete our love,” Tamsin said. “But the way he looked at me… I wonder if it will be the end of us. I think… I think he might hate me forever, for making him do this.”
With a sigh, Chani discreetly poured herself another cup of cider.
They waited uncertainly. Then with a cry of frustration, Sylas sprang up from the couch, startling them all. Dewshine let out a yelp and bounced upwards, her ancient instinct for flight triggered. But while back on Abode she could easily spring high enough to touch the room’s starstone ceiling, here she landed hard, staggering back against Tamsin and nearly wrenching her ankle.
“And I say I do not want to hear it!” Sylas shot over his shoulder at Haken. He started at the sudden appearance of the other elves. “What is this? Reinforcements? I tell you, I will not submit to this… outrage!”
“Please, Navigator,” Dewshine spoke up. “Can’t you see you are distressing Tamsin?”
Sylas looked at Tamsin’s tear-stained face. “I see that,” he said. “And I regret it. I regret all of this!” He glared at Haken. “My little brother has tried to make me see the ‘blessing’ of this enforced reproduction. But all I see is a great deal of misery for all involved!”
“Only so long as you resist,” Dewshine said. “Believe me, I know it.”
Sylas shuddered. “Ah. So I must choose submission, then. Yes, this is a song I have often heard. By many who insist they have my best interests at heart. The spirals turn, yet the songs remain the same.”
Haken rose and rubbed his forehead. “I have tried to make him see that the only choice lies in the… manner of his submission. I fear he will not concede defeat graciously.”
Tyldak stepped forward. “Navigator, may I speak? My daughter has shared many memories with you… I suspect she has told you of how her mother and I met. I too did not look for Recognition, I too called it an outrage. I wanted no part of it. And even when I reconciled myself to its consummation… I vowed I would have nothing to do with the child to come. Yet when we joined – when I felt the newly conceived soul emerging between us… I knew then I would give anything to hold onto both mate and child. Could it not be so for you and Tamsin?”
Sylas seemed to soften. He looked at Tamsin again. “Do not think I am not tempted by the thought of making a new soul with you, V- beloved,” he said solemnly. “If we could but create a child of spirit…”
Dewshine let out a gasp.
“But you know that is impossible,” Haken remarked. “A soul needs roots in this world to develop. Chani can tell you – she’s seen the souls of the very young pass through the Palace. Children, infants, even those stillborn…”
“Charming points of life,” Chani agreed. “But no character. No… defining spark. Just lights in one great spirit-flame.”
“I know that!” Sylas snapped irritably. “I have not forgotten everything during my long sleep!”
Tamsin swallowed. “If it is raising a child that distresses you so… we could part ways… afterwards. You could go back into wrapstuff… and I could visit you, if you wanted. You could meet our child later… or not at all, if you didn’t want.”
Sylas stared at her. “Do you think I care nothing for this unmade child of ours? I care too much! I’d find no comfort in sleep knowing I had a child out there – an elf living, and growing… and hurting–”
“You keep speaking of hurt,” Dewshine said. “What do you find so horrible about life in the flesh?”
She caught Haken shake his hand and wave off the question out of the corner of her eye.
“Everything!” Sylas shot back. “You are chained to one time-thread, always moving forward, fleeing one pain only to run into another. Aches… needs… fears… a lack of any control! Since I have awoken I am plagued by these… compulsions! The need to draw breath. The strain of the worldpull on bones and sinews. The burning dryness in my throat. The need for her!” he stabbed a finger at Tamsin.
“That you will find has a solution,” Haken quipped.
“I understand all these needs – the distateful processes of life. I can choose to accept them, to endure the pain. But a child – newly born and knowing nothing? I think of it… suffering in the silence of its own limited mind… as I suffered in my prison!”
“You’ve only been in this world a day,” Dewshine said. “Life is hard, but the living learn to adapt. It is so for every newborn. And it will be the same for you, surely.”
Sylas continued as if he he hadn’t heard her. “And then I think of it growing… prey to any accident of chance: an early death before its soul is matured, or a long life of misery, or any manner of catastrophes that I cannot prevent! The things I have seen in Tamsin’s memories… how can I – how can anyone – condemn a soul to such an existence?”
“Because that is life,” Dewshine argued. “Because that is how our kind increases itself. That is how we grow.”
“And why must we? For near five hundred spirals not a single new soul was created.”
“My folk call that stagnation. And it is the one thing we fear the most.”
“Then you are mad! To prefer struggle to equilibrium. The deeper I dig, the more I see how debased this stranding has made you creatures!”
“But without the stranding – and the suffering that followed – you wouldn’t have your Tamsin,” Haken pointed out. “Nor would I have my Chani… and the thousands of descendants who have lived and died and made both this plane and the astral one all the richer for their presence.”
“Life is a gift as well as a burden,” Dewshine argued. “And we must pass it on to the next generation.”
“Ah, so because I have benefited from life, I am somehow… obligated to perpetuate it?” he sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“We all are,” Dewshine insisted. “Go back to the Palace if you don’t believe me. Look in the Scroll of Colors – look for the child you and Tamsin will create! Doesn’t that child deserve its future?”
“And the mere probability of a child matters more than my own desires?”
“And what of Tamsin’s?” Dewshine challenged.
“Beloved? Is this really want you want?”
Tamsin began to nod, then checked herself. “Not if it causes you such pain. Sylas, you must know I’d never want to hurt you. And yet… that seems to be all I can do.”
“Don’t say that,” Sylas said gently. He cradled her face in his hands. “This is my fault. Perhaps there is a weakness in me – that I cannot see what everyone else does. But Tamsin… any child we might make deserves only the best existence. And what kind of a father would I make?”
“Oh… isn’t there something we can do?” Tamsin asked Chani helplessly. “Healers force Recognition all the time – can’t someone stop it?!”
“Oh, dearest cub. No.” Dewshine took Tamsin’s hands in hers. “Oh, how I’d wished a happy Recognition for you. But in the end, happy or not, Recognition is a command no elf can deny.” She glanced at Sylas. “Not even High Ones.”
“Are we certain of that?” Tamsin pressed.
Chani frowned. “I seem to remember… a spirit I met in the Palace once… not a Firstborn, but fairly old nonetheless. What was her name? Seri? Cheri? She Recognized an elf, but he refused to answer the call. Too devoted to his lifemate, or something of the sort. She claimed he held out for ten years before he succumbed to the need. I’m not sure I believe her: spirits are notoriously poor judges of time. I wonder…” she murmured to herself.
“We can fight it,” Tamsin decided.
“Not forever, child,” Dewshine insisted.
“You could go into wrapstuff again! I…. I could join you. If we’re cocooned together, there’s no chance I’d sleepwalk and cut you free again.”
“Don’t think like that!” Dewshine cried. “You can’t just keep hiding from life’s trials.”
“Haken?” Tamsin pressed.
“I fear it would only delay the inevitable.”
“Only death can sever the bond of Recognition, yes?” Sylas offered. “Well, I have died once before.”
“No!” Tamsin and Haken shouted in unison.
“You can’t–”
“I will not allow it–”
“Oh, enough, everyone!” Chani commanded. “Let’s wait for Winnowill.”
“Winnowill?” Dewshine asked, hackles rising.
Sure enough, Haken and Chani’s firstborn arrived on the scene no long after. A momentary locksending between mother and daughter seemed enough to explain the situation to Winnowill.
“Extinguish Recognition?” Winnowill mused. “Now that would be an interesting challenge. I confess I never thought it possible. But then I have never encountered a situation where it was earnestly desired.” Her gaze flickered to Tyldak and Dewshine. “Except you two, of course. My… how differently events might have unfolded had I had such a skill then!”
“Fortunately for us all, you did not,” Dewshine said tersely.
“Mm, you sang a different tune then, as I recall. Of course, back then, I was quite certain Recognition could not be kindled willingly either. But the Palace’s reawakening made that possible. With the power of the Ark… on this magic-amplifying world…. Yes, Tamsin is right: in theory there is no reason why the compulsion cannot be terminated... or at least deferred.”
“Then… may we truly wait?” Tamsin asked hopefully. “Until Sylas comes to want it as much as I do?”
“And if I never do?” Sylas asked.
Tamsin looked up at him with a serenity Dewshine had not seen in her daughter in many months. “Then I will wait forever.”
“Tamsin, no,” Dewshine said. “You needn’t give up all your desires just to please him!”
“Not all,” Tamsin said calmly. “Just one. After all he’s given up for me, it’s a small price to pay.” A sad smile touched her face. “Sylas, you’re right. This life holds many burdens. But I make you a promise: I will never willingly add to your burdens. I will never force you to be anything other than who you are. And I will do all I can to show you why life is worth the burdens to us. Maybe one day… you might want change your mind about a child. Or maybe… you might decide life isn’t worth enduring after all.”
Haken stepped forward to protest, and Chani calmly took his shoulder and pulled him back.
Tamsin rocked up on her toes, touched her forehead to Sylas’s. “And I promise, whatever you choose, I’ll still love you. And whether we have a spirals of time together, or just a day, I’ll always be grateful for it.”
Dewshine watched the couple embrace, torn by warring emotions. Tamsi’s locksending touched the edge of her mind.
**It’s all right, Mother. Really, it is. I’m not giving up a dream… I’m just waiting a while. I know it in my heart. He couldn’t imagine living again… but now he is. He can’t imagine being a good father, but he will. One day.**
**But how can you be certain?**
Her sending was clear and strong. **I don’t know. But I am.**
Winnowill drew up alongside Dewshine. “She reminds me of my sister Melati,” she murmured in the Wolfrider’s ear. “So fierce in her love… so strong in her will. You must be very proud. When was the last time your tribe produced one with such determination?”
Dewshine turned around and stared at Winnowill. But the healer was already turning to Chani. “I will need my dark sister’s aid. Such a thing has never been tried before. But together… with the power of the Ark behind us, I think we can do what’s needed.”
* * *
Melati came. The two healers led the new lifemates into an adjacent room, while their kin waited in awkward silence. At length healers and patients re-emerged, and from the relief plain on Tamsin’s and Sylas’s faces, Dewshine knew the ancient reproductive urge had been silenced.
“When you are both ready to raise a child, Recognition’s flame can be rekindled,” Winnowill said serenely. Melati, for her part, merely rubbed the back of her neck irritably.
Sylas gave Tamsin’s hand a squeeze. “One day… perhaps…”
“And until then, we have each other,” Tamsin finished.
Again Dewshine caught Haken squirming out of the corner of her eye, but this time he restrained himself from interjecting.
Tamsin turned to Haken. “And for now, we would like to stay here, if your offer still stands.”
Haken’s face was transformed by sudden joy. “Yes – yes, of course! Need you ask?”
“Tamsin?” Dewshine asked.
“Sylas will find it easier here on Homestead. But I’ll come visit often. The Ark can surely make pods as easily as the Palace.” She risked a quick glance at Haken, then added, “Or Skywise or Sunstream can–”
“Of course Sylas will have his own travel pod,” Haken said.
“You’ll barely even notice I’m gone, Mother. Truly.”
“I’ll miss you dreadfully,” Dewshine countered. Then she summoned a brave smile. “But… I’ll learn to let you go. I promise.”
“Well, if our work is done…” Melati said, eyeing the door anxiously. Winnowill laughed lightly.
“Yes, I think my sister and I will take our leave.”
Dewshine followed them out into the corridor. “Poor thing,” Winnowill was chuckling under her breath. “Left you unsettled, did it?”
“I feel like I’m about to tear out of my skin.”
“Understandable.We did absorb all their… need. Best go find your Beast. I’m sure he can soothe what ails you.”
Melati laughed breathlessly. “And if we break bones this time?”
“Well, I’m sure it won’t be the first time.”
“What about you? You must be just as tightly strung.”
Winnowill waved off her concern. “Nothing I can’t handle myself, little sister.”
Melati smirked. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
She set off in search of her lifemate. Winnowill watched her go, then turned and saw Dewshine. Her face registered neither surprise nor amusement, only a bland interest. “Yes?” she asked, politely enough.
“I… I wanted to thank you,” Dewshine stammered. “For helping them. It… it’s not the choice I would have made for them…”
“But it’s a choice you might have made yourself, long ago,” Winnowill finished. She narrowed her turquoise eyes. “And that frightens you a little.”
“More than a little. Because for all I suffered then, it gave me my life with Tyldak, my two children, and I count that a blessing. And I still think if Sylas would only let himself be a father, he’d understand what a gift it is, to be able to create new life.”
“Not all of us are made to be parents,” Winnowill said levelly. “I wasn’t… not for a long time. I remember more than once, how Two-Edge cursed me for giving him life. That he has come to forgive me is… a credit to his own goodness. High Ones know, it’s nothing I taught him. And though I can’t regret his birth, I am glad I never had others.”
Dewshine nodded. “I think I understand. I… you said you didn’t expect my forgiveness. And honestly, I don’t know if I can give it to you. But you have my gratitude, for what you did for Tamsin. You’re right. I have much to be proud of in her. And she is fiercely strong… though I… I suppose I didn’t see just how strong until now.”
Winnowill continued to watch her, and Dewshine felt herself shrinking under her steady gaze. “That… that’s all,” she finished lamely, and turned back to the sitting room’s door.
Winnowill called her back. “Dewshine. You… did have another name. I used it once.”
The Wolfrider felt her blood run cold. But then Winnowill smiled – not the sly, serpentine curve of the lips that haunted Dewshine’s dreams, but a genuine smile that warmed her cheeks and brightened her eyes.
**By Voll’s blood, I cannot seem remember it.**
In sending there was only truth, Dewshine had always believed. Save where Winnowill was concerned. Yet her gaze was open, and Dewshine found herself wanting to believe. Winnowill gave her a little nod of the head, as if acknowledging all that went unsaid between them.
**Perhaps I could remember… if I tried. But I won’t. Some things are best forgotten, after all.**
“T-thank you, Winnowill.”
She laughed lightly. “Wager you never thought to say those words twice in one day! Go on, go see to your daughter. And keep an eye on Tyldak. Let him fly too much in this air and you’ll never get him to go back to Abode.”
* * *
The Palace stayed for two more days – long, sun-filled days that confused the visitors’ sleep cycles – before returning to Abode. Tamsin promised to return before long, in the new Ark-pod Sylas would fashion.
On the third day of his new life, Sylas joined Haken on the Ark’s highest starstone balcony. The Daystar was on its way down, and the shadow of the rings traced shifting patterns over the restless surface of the gray-blue sea. Sylas stared out at it, seemingly lost in thought.
“It’s hardly the Homestar,” Haken acknowledged, as he joined Sylas at the balcony’s railing. “But in another spiral or two… I predict great things from this place.”
“You never knew the Homestar in its prime. A place of such crowded, intricate beauty.”
Haken set his hand on his shoulder. “You will have to help me recreate it here. What great work we will do.” He squeezed affectionately. “Masters of our own world, freed from the shackles of the Circle. No interference, no rivals.”
“Rivals…” Sylas murmured. “Do I dream it, or was our time in the Homeshell nothing but one great battle for primacy? The cabals, the ever-shifting alliances… how it disgusted me.”
“The quiet of the Navigators suited your nature better,” Haken acknowledged.
“But that was a strategem too. A way to limit the size of the Inner Circle, to maintain the balance of power. We were all ambitious by nature, we Navigators. Left to our own devices, we might well have threatened the ruling faction.”
“You should have been in the Inner Circle, at my side,” Haken said fiercely.
“You tried your best. You secured me several votes, if I remember right. But that sweet-tongued schemer outmanuevered us both. What did his name become? You know who I mean.”
“Adya.”
“Adya,” Sylas repeated with a curl of the lip. “What a little tyrant he was. I don’t suppose the turning of the spirals improved him.”
“Hardly. Always choosing our path, always needing to be first.”
“What became of him?”
Haken smiled dryly. “He was the first of us to die.”
“Fitting.”
“He’s a mere ripple in the spirit pool now. All of them – our friends and our rivals both…” Haken wrapped his arm about Sylas’s ribs and drew him close. “But we two endured… and we have so much time to make up for.”
“We two…” Sylas agreed. “But one other remains, back on that two-mooned world.”
“And there she’ll stay.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“She’s no threat to us. She had her chance to oppose me, when I first raised the Ark: she did nothing but growl. She’s chosen her smallness, her mean little world. It suits her.”
Sylas turned. “Then you’ve pardoned her? For all the harm she’s caused you?”
”I wouldn’t go that far. Say rather: I can put her from my mind.”
Sylas glanced back at the pearly sky, and the nearby planet hiding somewhere behind the scattered sunlight. “I cannot. She told me she forgives me my anger. But I can never forgive her deception.”
“Sylas? What did she say to you?”
Sylas gripped the balcony railing tight. “You must understand: I was half-mad with pain and fear. A husk-shock so severe it resisted all your daughter’s healing arts. But I heard her, singing to me in our birth-tongue. ‘I am Timmain, she of the Circle who is charged to remember. And I remember you. You are Passion’s bond, the one we called….’” his voice broke as he attempted to whistle his birthname.
“She knew who I was!” Sylas repeated fiercely, trembling with rage. “And who you were to me. But did she tell me you lived still? Did she give me that reason to stay in my shell? No. You know what she told me? ‘Go. Leave this pain. Be at peace. Be one with the others. They are still here in spirit. Rejoin your own Circle. They are waiting for you.’”
He spun around. “But they weren’t! They had spent a full spiral learning to forget me. The wound of my disappearance had long since healed. Their souls no longer called to mine, and I could not find them. I could not find anyone!” His voice rose, his breaths coming in ragged gasps as he remembered. “And in my panic I stumbled into a tear in the Multitude, into the great echoing Cry that cut through space and time – alone – an eternity–”
Haken embraced him before he could go on. “Shh,” he whispered in Sylas’s ear. “My bond… I have you now.”
For a moment, Sylas returned the embrace. Then, abruptly, he thrust Haken back. “When I confronted her under her mountain, I asked her why she urged me towards death, why she could not have foreseen the result. She knew – oh, she must have known – the other Navigators had forgotten me. If she truly communes with the spirits of the Firstcomers, then she must know how much the spirit pool has changed them. How much has been lost.”
Haken set his jaw and clenched his fist. “And what did she say?”
“Only that she did what she thought best. According to her own soul’s truth. I felt her truth. Not a whisper of regret… nor a shred of sympathy. And still not a word of you.”
Pain tingled in Haken’s palm and ran up his arm. He raised his fist to see blood trickling between his fingers. His knuckles had turned bone-white from the force he exerted. Slowly he opened his hand, examining the moon-shaped punctures his nails had dug into his palm. Sylas gave a little cry of pain and folded Haken’s hand in his own.
“No… for one who remembers everything, Timmain regrets nothing,” Haken murmured distantly. “I wonder… if she realizes how fortunate she is, that there is a sea of stars between us. Feared what we would do together if we were reunited, did she? Let her fear now. Let her tremble in her starstone egg.”
“Will her egg content her forever?” Sylas asked. “Tamsin said she fought you for mastery of the Homeshell before. Now you have your Ark… are you certain she will not covet it?”
Again he glanced up at the rings and the vastness of space beyond. “A creature incapable of remorse is a dangerous foe. You said you won the war. What if you’re wrong? What if the war is still to come?”
Haken touched his cheek, turned him back to face him. His fingertips left a smear of blood on Sylas’s cheekbone.
“Then we will fight her together,” Haken vowed. “And we will destroy her.”
Elfquest copyright 2016 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2016 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2016 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts.