How I Spent My Winter Vacation
Leetah looked around the stark stone room, slowly taking in its contents. She could afford to be unhurried in her inspection. Pool had left little in the way of personal effects. A few small tapestries to brighten the gray walls, a woodwhistle and a meditation stone, a simple stone bed and two changes of clothes: these, it seemed, were all the comforts Pool had needed in his final years.
“I am sorry I took so long to come,” Leetah said. “I hope I did not keep you waiting.”
“Three months isn’t long,” Weatherbird corrected gently.
“Is that all it’s been? Strange, it seems much longer somehow. My head knows I last saw him in Bonedry. But in my heart… it’s as if he died long ago.”
“This must be hard for you.”
“It’s not, really,” Leetah said. “If anything… it’s a relief.” She shuddered and wrung her hands. “A terrible thing for a mother to say – I know. You cannot understand – your son is young and full of life. He brings you joy every day. I know Pool was like that once… but it is so hard to remember. Time and tragedy winnowed away all the joy in him… and turned him into someone who was hard to love. Savah knows I tried. I tried so hard with both of them… tried so much harder than either of them ever….” She grit her teeth and shook away the old hurt. “Forgive me. In truth, I have been grieving the loss of him for years.”
“He always spoke fondly of you,” Weatherbird said, in that careful tone that suggested a half-truth. “He loved you dearly, and I think it grieved him that you became…”
“Estranged?”
“Such different souls.”
“Yes. Grieved him so much that he would reappear – in sendings, in dreams, in Oasis itself… always just at the moment when I thought I had learned to live without him. And fool that I was, I always hoped that this time would be different.” She picked up the woodwhistle, turned it over in her hands. “Did he play?”
Weatherbird couldn’t quite disguise the wince. “He tried to.”
“Another failure, then. One would think he would have given it up.”
“I think he meant to show perseverance. Or perhaps he just couldn’t hear the notes fall flat.”
Leetah’s lips tugged upwards in a joyless smile. “He never could, could he?”
She set the woodwhistle back on the stone table. “I dreamt of him the other night. That’s why I chose to come now.”
“Oh?” Weatherbird bent her head forward expectantly. She of all elves knew the importance of dreams, where the lines between the realms of flesh and spirit dissolved to nothingness.
“He was a little kitling again, running – racing his father through the green-growing place of Scouter’s youth. I heard their laughter and I tried to follow, how I tried. But the greenery snagged my skirt, and my heart fluttered too hard in my breast, and I lost sight of them.
“For a time I tracked their laughter, and the trail they had left through the woods, and at last I began to catch up to their voices. Scouter would be proud of what a Wolfrider I had become! But of course he didn’t notice. He had raced on ahead. Still Pool called to me, ‘Come find us, Mother!’ – as if we were counting taal. So I followed his voice, followed into deeper, darker woods, until the trees seemed to close around me, their limbs dark and grasping. I smelled rot in the air – wet and cold – the deepest, coldest emptiness… and between the black tree trunks I could see it. This… Evertree – vast and moldering and wrong! Scouter stood before it, and he seemed to glow with light – the inner light of his soul. But as he touched the tree the light drained out of him and he became a shadow that melted into the tree trunk. He didn’t even look at me.
“I called to Pool, I begged him to come back to me, back to the light. Instead he just smiled sadly, this kitling of mine, and said, ‘You can join us. We’re waiting for you.’”
“What happened then?”
“I wouldn’t move – I wouldn’t enter that glade of shadow and death. And Pool looked heartbroken, but still he turned and followed his father into the Tree. And when I awoke I knew it wasn’t some fancy of my own mind, but a true seeing!”
“I think you may be right. The Tree – or the Pool-soul within it – has called to Timmain as well. And several of the Wolfriders have reported strange dreams.”
Leetah did not seem to hear her. She continued, her voice growing ever more bitter. “‘You can join us,’ he said, as if it were such a little thing. It’s always me who has to bend, always me who has to cross the distance as they stand there, just out of reach. They have exhausted me, the pair of them. And now they have abandoned me – gone to a place where I refuse to follow.” She drew a deep breath. “I feel… oddly free.”
She picked up the woodwhistle again. “I will keep this. Do what you like with the rest.”
“You’re quite certain?”
Leetah nodded. “There is nothing else here I wish to remember.”
* * *
“The snows are getting good and deep now – we had a snow slide off the North Wall the other day,” Skot told the wrapstuff cocoon. “Not that it’s stopped Bluestar’s from going out every day with his sled. Won’t say his Grandpa Skot didn’t join him on a few runs for old time’s sake, but I gotta carve up a sled of my own – the little buck’s getting too big to share his.
“He’s even got some of the Wolfriders joining in – the ones who aren’t holed up in their caves in First Shell, whining about the bite in the air. Pff – you’d never guess most of them are descended from Go-Backs, that’s for sure! One of their does just caught – I think her name is Sorrel – and she wouldn’t believe their own healer. Said she couldn’t have a fawn in there because she didn’t Recognize anyone! Can you imagine? A great-great-whatever-granddaughter of Kahvi – and she didn’t know you could make a baby without meeting eyes! You should have seen her face when Cheipar and I said we were living proof you could. So now all the stags who’ve been having it with her are trying to figure out which one gets the bragging rights.
“You should see our little Turtle – you’d never recognize him! Taking charge of those lost wolf pups – I know it’s mostly Kit’s doing, but I swear, when Littlefire does decide to bare his fangs you can see the Kahvi in him.” Skot’s voice turned wistful as he ran his hand over the threads of Preserver silk. “If we could get Sust to come visiting, it would be like the old days in the Great Holt. I wish you could to see all this with me, squirrel-cheeks.”
**Fleinn,** he added silently. **Come back to me soon.**
* * *
“The Wolfriders seem to be adjusting well,” Aurek remarked, as he and his son paced through the corridors of the Egg’s Fourth Shell. To be more precise: Aurek paced, while Littlefire floated, occasionally drifting too close to the floor and bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Well enough. I don’t think the Hunt will be happy anywhere they can’t run as free as they like, but the Holtbound are finally settling inside the First Shell. It helps that they’re bringing in their own meat now – even the Holtbound don’t like living off another elf’s work.”
“And yet all living things serve one another in some way. Their worldsong teaches them this. How is our sharing of resources any different? If the hunters chafe so at accepting food and furs from us, surely they can restore the balance by offering something in exchange.”
“You’d think. But Eyetooth and Stripe are as like to spit in your face as offer thanks. Bad enough you shame them by giving them something they feel they ought to provide for themselves. But to suggest they now owe you a debt? That’s begging for a wolf’s teeth in your throat.”
“Pride. The downfall of many a good elf.” Aurek sighed and shook his head. “You have exceptional patience with your wayward children.”
“We have to. Something very special would be lost forever, if the Wolfriders of old were to die out.”
“No fear of that at the moment, at least. I hear the tribe has another cub on the way.”
“Death breeds new life… Sorrel’s already vowed she’ll name it Sunrise.” He chuckled. “Be a funny sight if Blackwing really is the father, and the cub comes out dark as night. It’s good it happened when it did,” Littlefire added after a moment’s further reflection. “It’s taken the eyes off Rue.”
“They are still shaming her, for leaving the Hunt?”
“It’s better now, with the Holtbound inside First Shell and the Hunt out in the forest. For a while there, we thought Eyetooth and Elkshanks meant to drag her back to the Hunt. But even the Holtbound can’t quite believe she means to nurse the child all by herself. And lately Stripe’s been making noise about the baby. Came into First Shell last night, talking scat and threatening Rue, acting like she’s his tree to mark…”
“Ah. Might that explain those bruised knuckles?” Aurek gestured to the scrape-marks across Littlefire’s right hand.
“Might,” Littlefire admitted with a tight smile.
Aurek said no more on the matter. He knew well the unspoken history behind the Waykeeper’s fierce protectiveness of Rue and her unborn child. “Do you know where you’ll go, once the thaw begins?” he asked instead. “I imagine the mountains will not suit your tribemates as a permanent home.”
“No. It’s too cold, too close to the College, too close to the human settlement. Some of the hunters are looking at the valley between Knife Ridge and Saddlemount…”
Aurek nodded thoughtfully. “There is still plenty of woodland there.”
“Others want to go back to the Homeland and the Evertree.”
“That… would be a grave mistake.”
“We agree. But it’s all they know – all they’ve known for generations. It’s home. It’s the only place in the world that will ever feel right to them. The dreams aren’t helping,” Littlefire added. “The Tree knows how to wield guilt like a knife.”
“Have they continued for you?”
“No. But we know how to master our dreams. The others don’t. And some are weaker-willed than others. They speak of going back, and we can hear the Tree’s voice in their words. I even overheard Sparkstone saying the Tree is our Palace, and we shouldn’t abandon it like the High Ones did theirs!”
“Well, he’s mangling his history for one thing.”
“He never did attend his lessons–”
“And you just said ‘I overheard.’”
Littlefire flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Slipped.”
“There is nothing to apologize for… to me or your lifemate.” **But it is a noticeable change. And, if you’ll forgive me, not the first such ‘slip’ since you came here.**
**It’s not just the tribe that’s fracturing,** Kit replied. **Ever since the Evertree… separated us, we’ve been finding it harder to come back together.**
**Don’t know why,** Littlefire’s own sending added.
**Yes, you do.**
**We split up all the time when we ‘go out’–**
**Yes. But never when we’re awake. We didn’t think it was possible… until it was.**
“Many changes do not seem possible, until they are upon us,” Aurek agreed.
“The Way is dying,” Littlefire said, with the renewed strength of both souls speaking as one. “Lives come and go, and the seasons renew us, and we thought that was enough. But the wheel can turn all it wants and it’s still the same circle. That’s just another kind of stagnation. We are Waykeeper, but the Way must change. We must change.”
**And… what form will this change take?**
“We don’t know yet,” Littlefire admitted. “But it will hurt. The Evertree was right about that. All change is painful.” He hesitated, then when on. “We’d like you and Mother – and Cheipar – to keep an eye on the Wolfriders. We’ll need to go away for a while.”
“A quest for a new Holt? I suspected as much when I saw you speaking with Skywise.”
“Can’t risk the tribe on an unknown. We need to find them some choices – wise choices – for a new hunting ground. We’ll scout some lands, both near and… very far. Perhaps the others won’t want to follow where we lead them. But they need to choose with open eyes.”
“You’ve learned to speak like a chief.”
Littlefire gave a breathless laugh. “She has, at any rate. He’s still not sure.”
* * *
“You… might want to talk to Waykeeper before he leaves.”
Foxglove looked up from the spearpoint she’d been sharpening. “Leaves? What buckrot are you spouting?”
Burl shrugged. “It’s what I heard, is all.”
Foxglove pushed the furred hood of her coat off her face, and turned to better study Burl’s brooding face. “From who?”
“Half-Arm and Softdew… and Stripe and Elm and Nettlesilk.” Burl narrowed his eyes. “The whole Hunt is whispering about it. You might know if you shared meat with us more often.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Foxglove bristled.
“Just that you seem to be following the trail Rue blazed. Slinking around the Holt caves, nipping at Waykeeper’s heels. And what’s this?” He seized her spear and bobbed the heavy new brightmetal spearpoint up and down. “Not Wolfrider metal!”
Of course it wasn’t. Wolfrider metal was next to useless for weapons now. According to some of the oldest howls, the Holt had once had proper metalworkers, disciples of Clearbrook Silversmith. There had even been a forge at the crags, long ago, where hot-blooded striplings could play at being trolls and work out their frustrations mining the stone. But the crags had long since stopped yielding any ore of worth, and the taboo against trade with the other nations meant that any existing metal had been reforged over and over, until it became brittle as a leaf in death-sleep. Only a few priceless Wolfrider swords remained; most of the tribe’s metal survived only as ornaments, handed down from elder to child. Foxglove’s only tangible inheritance from her mother were the brightmetal clasps that fastened her leathers.
It didn’t matter, really. Every Wolfrider child was taught how to knap stone. At least, Foxglove had never thought it mattered – until she came to the Egg and her mouth watered with envy at the sight of so much brightmetal.
“It’s a gift!” Foxglove snapped. “From Waykeeper’s mother! I’m allowed to take gifts from her – we all accepted gifts from her.” She yanked the spear free of his grasp and gave his new winter coat a jab with the butt.
“Aye, we all lapped up her pap like cublings and rolled over on our bellies in gratitude. We wear their furs and we hunt in their lands and every time the wind comes out of the north I can smell the stink of that human hive! It’s intolerable!”
Foxglove granted him that. If they hiked to the sledding slope and looked north, they could see the smoke curls rising from the distant town. When the hunters ranged too far into the glacial valley, they would run up against the fences of the shepherds. Foxglove didn’t know how the College elves could stand living so close to such vicious beasts. Waykeeper said it was no different than sharing a forest with a cranky old bear, but surely if bears had decided to set up their dens next door to the Evertree in numbers like these, the tribe would have moved years ago.
But perhaps not. Now the Evertree itself was more dangerous than any bear or human, and some of the tribe still wanted to go back.
“You have to tolerate it,” Foxglove said. “At least until the thaw.”
“And then what? We go where the Waykeeper tells us? Live how he tells us? Become cringing near-wolves like the Holtbound? He’s not my chief!”
“Your chief got eaten by that Tree! And I haven’t seen Eyetooth or Stripe or Half-Arm step up to lead.” Irritation made her petty. “Come to think of it, I saw Stripe take a blow from Waykeeper like a whimpering bottom-wolf the other day!”
Burl glowered. “He shamed him. Stripe has every right to want his cub raised by his tribe, and he was shamed for it – in front of the Holtbound!”
“Then maybe Stripe shouldn’t start fights he has no hope of winning.” Foxglove went back to sharpening her spearpoint. Privately, she thought Rue was mad to want to keep her child all to herself – everyone knew it took a tribe to raise a cub. But she hadn’t been looking forward to seeing the more dominant females like Nettlesilk and Softdew claim the yet-unborn Redfawn as their trophy either. Her own childhood was full of memories of being passed around from packmother to packmother without regard for her own desires.
“Eyetooth’s not going to stand for it,” Burl said ominously.
“Buckrot. He had his chance to challenge back at the Evertree – and he got into the Palace-pod like everyone else.”
Burl looked around to confirm they were alone under the trees – and that the heavy snowpack would absorb any sounds. He sidled closer to her and lowered his voice. “He’s got another chance, and he’s going to take it.”
“What–”
“So hush, and listen. You tell the Waykeeper if he’s really going to go… he’d better take Rue with him, or lock her up somewhere deep inside the Egg. Because when Eyetooth makes his move, he’s going to want to take her back. He’s promised Softdew as much.”
Foxglove’s eyes widened. “What… what move is he going to make?”
“What kind do you think, cub?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Maybe I don’t want to see my own kin dragging off a lifebearer against her will. Maybe I don’t want to see her abandoned in the snow to die after she’s had the cub.” Burl looked her up and down critically. “You might want to think where you plan to be when the time comes. Fact is – you might want to decide before then. Eyetooth doesn’t plan on losing any more lifebearers to the Holtbound.” He flicked her sharpened spearpoint, drawing a few drops of blood which he let fall to the snow. “And High Ones know I don’t want to see your pretty new spear drinking Wolfrider blood.”
* * *
The town of High Hope sat a half-day’s walk from the Egg. Bluestar reached it in less than an hour by flitting.
His stamina was improving. Trial and error had taught him to always flit on a full stomach, preferably meat and milk, and to never flit more than four or five times in quick succession without stopping to catch his breath and orient himself to the landscape. Since the incident in Oasis, his mother had reluctantly given her blessing to more adventurous excursions. His father remained in blissful ignorance, at least officially. But Bluestar suspected there was little that escaped his sire.
The town sat at the head of an old glacier valley, and the heat of the bright winter sun reflected off the snow-covered slopes. Bluestar soon stripped off his bulky winter coat and tied it into a roll he could carry over one shoulder. The natural solar oven and the heavy foot traffic meant the cobblestone lanes of High Hope ran with rivers of meltwater. Bluestar watched his feet as he bounded over the worst of the puddles, glancing up only when a shadow told him he was about to collide with an unwary human.
“Oof – pardons, sor elf,” was the standard reply whenever he dodged a near-collision, though some locals preferred “Watch it, boy!” Sloe-eyed Longriders made up the bulk of the town’s population, but in his many visits Bluestar had encountered dark-skinned Ujjals, flat-faced Djaarsmen, and tattooed Keldarkks. On any given day there might be several visiting elves in the city – either Plainsrunner traders or College folk. There was even a resident troll who ran a blacksmith’s forge, and routinely charged elf customers double what he did the humans. It might be the only place of its kind in the world, but High Hope was proof that all the races of Abode could coexist.
He skipped and skidded into one of the marketplaces, narrowly avoiding a muddy puddle. Here merchants from all over the New Land had set up their wares: everything from rare spices to local game to fine jewelry. Bluestar stretched on tiptoes, trying to see through the crowd of humans and horses.
“Hey, pointy-ears!” A familiar voice rang out in accented Tradespeak. Bluestar turned until he spotted the speaker, leaning against a market stall.
“Rowb, you ol’ gwit!” Bluestar called out in the same tongue. He ran over to the human stripling and greeted him with a hearty punch to the gut and a slap to the back. “What are you doing up here? I thought you were wintering down in Krooshtevwon.”
At fourteen, Rowb towered over Bluestar. One light swat to the shoulder nearly sent the elf-lad sprawling. “Change of plans. So many refugees fleeing Djunshold – Pa and I got work as caravan guards.”
“A stripling like you, a sellsword?”
“Stripling? Pa told them I was ten-and-six and they paid me a man’s wage! I’ve got my own horse and my own sword now – so don’t you go telling anyone any different.”
“So are you staying here until the thaw?”
“Can’t – gotta head back to the lowlands and herd another flock of these poor sheep.” Rowb threw an arm around Bluestar and guided him down a side street lined with more stalls. “The peasants are deserting Djunshold like rats from a burning farmhouse! Can’t blame ’em – the new Djun may just be a nurseling but the Regent’s a right drukker, and if no one’s knifed him yet I’d say he’s going to be around for a while. Word of what happened in Port Bane has gotten as far inland as Keldarkken. Folks say it’s just a matter of time before the Gray Queen rises from the underworld and crushes the Citadel itself.”
“Drub? Pfft, fat chance there. My grandfather says that would mean getting out of her throne, and she’s already done that once this century.” But even as he said it, he wondered. The massacre at Port Bane seemed to have soured the humans on attacking the trolls directly, but if this Regent continued to make a pest of himself, Drub might decide a war was worth the exercise. The riches of the Citadel would make a nice addition to Undermount’s coffers.
“Where’s Khuldalchi by the way?” Rowb asked. “I stopped by his stables yesterday and they were all boarded up.”
“Oh, his whole clan has taken off. They want to get to spring grazing at Khulki’s Mountain. Where are we going?” Bluestar asked as he Rowb steered him down another narrow lane.
“Got someone for you to meet before I hit the road again. Funniest little thing from Djunshold: you’ll like her.”
They crossed the breadth of the town, until they reached the barren fields where the many refugees from Djunshold had assembled in all manner of temporary dwellings. Longrider yurts and bulky Djaarsland wagons shared the field with hastily-cobbled shacks and threadbare tents. Rowb led Bluestar to a modest yurt – a cheap Keldarkk copy of the Longrider design, which was itself inspired by the elves of the High Plains.
“She tells the strangest stories,” Rowb went on. “Claims her father was there on the Haunted Mountain, the night of the Revelation. And she says a friendly spirit healed her of the Rot the same night.” He knocked on one of the wooden supports, then tugged open the crude curtain the Keldarkks used instead of a proper door. “Hey, Elftouched! You in there? Brought you a friend.”
A young girl’s voice issued from the smoky shadows. “If it’s another of your friends, Rowb, then I – oh!”
The girl stepped into the light of the open tent flap, her small eyes fixed on Bluestar. Though they seemed to be of an age she was already a handspan taller than he, lanky and graceless like many striplings. Her tousled hair seemed to be sandy blond under all the soot and grime of her long journey up from Djunshold.
She murmured something soft and reverent as she fell to her knees. Rowb laughed derisively. “See, I told you I knew an elf. Oh, get off your knees, girl! He’s not Threksh’t! And talk Trade – he doesn’t know your Djunspeak.”
Bluestar held out a hand to the disbelieving girl. “It’s all right,” he said in Tradespeak. “I’m a friend.”
“Oh… silver hair,” she murmured. She spoke passable Trade, though she had to pause between each word to recall it. “Like the good spirit who healed me.” She began to reach for his hand, then hesitated, still awed by his appearance.
“My name’s Bluestar,” he said, stretching his fingers out just a little further to brush against hers. She gave a shy little squeak, then impulsively clasped his palm in hers.
“Shuna.”
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