Artemis Awakening (22 page)

More fun for them all was when Griffin taught Sand Shadow how to play a simple marble-shooting game. Children on Artemis played marbles, but the Sierra variation involved numerous overlapping circles. It remained perennially popular on Griffin’s homeworld, where its connection to a solar festival made certain it never quite fell out of use.

Soon man and puma were rooting through stream gravels for rounded pebbles, marking the game patterns in the ground at every stop. Adara and Terrell went from amused observers to enthusiastic participants. Terrell even found a type of clay that could be shaped into rounded forms and baked to hardness in the ashes of the fire. After that each of them carried a little pouch holding their own personal marbles. Sand Shadow wore hers around her neck.

All in all, when Adara pointed to the faint marks on the horizon that were the first indication that the town of Spirit Bay was near, Griffin realized he was reluctant to see the journey end.

“We’ll be there tomorrow,” Adara said, “or the next day at most. Depends on how high the river is running at the ford.”

Griffin searched her face for some indication about how the huntress felt regarding the coming ordeal, but the sculptured features were impassive as some stone carving.

“And when we get there?”

“Bruin told me the name of a couple of boarding houses that gave him no trouble about Honeychild the last time he came to Spirit Bay. We will take rooms in one of these and send a message on to the Old One to tell him of our arrival.”

“And then?”

“And then,” Adara said, her full lips shaping a mischievous a grin that made perfectly clear that even now she was not willing to begin conjecturing, “we will see what happens.”

Interlude: Cat’s Play

Velvet darkness, soft as sound.

     My other self, my shadow,

     Can you hear me?

My shadow, my other self,

     I can hear you.

Shadow self try, so I can

     Hear what you hear,

          See what you …

               Feel what …

                    Taste

                         Smell

Velvet darkness, soft as sound.

12

Spirit Bay

“Bruin?” the man repeated, holding tightly to the collar of a large brown dog that had stopped barking long enough to strain forward for a good, slobbery sniff.

Adara held her breath. She was sure she’d come to the right place, but the town’s nesting lines of buildings left her feeling more lost than ever the forest did.

“Bruin the Hunter,” she repeated. “Benjamin Hunter. He told us we’d find friends of his here.”

The man’s face lit up. As if reading his master’s emotions, the dog’s long tail started tocking back and forth in quick strokes and he settled onto his haunches.

“Oh, Benji Bear! That Bruin! Of course! We haven’t seen him for years, but he often visited us when he came to see the Old One. You must be Adara. He’s mentioned you in his letters. Of course you can stay here. I’m sorry. I couldn’t make out what you were saying over Roughneck’s yammering.”

“I have two friends with me,” Adara ventured, “and a puma. She knows how to mind her manners.”

“If she’s anything like Bruin’s Honeychild, then of course she does. I’m Cedric Trainer. This badly behaved boy is Roughneck. He’ll be a fine guard dog someday, but now he’s just a pup.”

Cedric Trainer was a bluff and hearty sort, the greying whiskers that framed his ruddy jowls cut so that he rather resembled one of the larger terrier breeds.

“Let me tell my wife, Elaine,” he continued. “You go get your friends. If you came all the way from Shepherd’s Call, you must have horses with you. We’ve room for them, too.”

“Three horses and a mule,” Adara said. “We could stable them elsewhere if they’d take up too much room.”

“No problem. We’ve plenty of space. Now, go fetch your friends.”

If Cedric reminded Adara of a terrier, then Elaine was a greyhound, long and lean, with a very pointed nose and silky, straight hair. She joined her husband in expressing delight at giving room to “Benji Bear’s Adara” and her companions. The horses and Sam the Mule were to be stabled in one of the many long kennels set haphazardly about the property.

“There’s room for you with the rest of us in the main house,” Elaine said, “if you don’t mind children underfoot.”

“Not at all,” Adara assured her. “Are you certain Sand Shadow will be no problem? Her scent won’t bother your dogs?”

“As long as she doesn’t harass them,” Cedric said, “they can be as bothered by the smell of a great cat as much as they like. We train hunting dogs among the rest. The better trained shouldn’t even take note of her—obedience is essential, don’t you know. The pups, well, let them get a good whiff. Won’t harm them and might teach them something.”

Evening was coming on by the time the horses and Sam the Mule were comfortably settled, and the guests had been given a quick tour of the grounds, during which their group kept accumulating both children and dogs, most of which followed them into the main house. The ground floor was one enormous pillared room furnished with tables and benches that could be moved with ease. The wooden floor was covered with scatter rugs that couldn’t hide a certain amount of scuffing.

“We train the dogs in here when the weather’s bad, don’t you know,” replied Cedric in answer to an unspoken question. “Waste of good space breaking the room into little boxes. Gives a place for the children to run, too. Smaller rooms upstairs.”

There certainly were children enough, far more, it seemed to Adara, than could be accounted for by only two parents. There was a scattering of older folk as well, but the whirl of introductions confused Adara, so that in the end she couldn’t figure out the relationships between anyone. It didn’t help her sense of being overwhelmed that the dogs were introduced as elaborately as any human, complete with lineages going back for generations. Most of the indoor dogs were small ones, but a couple of the honored grey-muzzled creatures that rested by one of the numerous hearths were very large indeed.

“That’s a breed dating back to the days of the seegnur,” Elaine said, nudging a toddler holding a fat puppy out of the way as she set a board holding bread and cheese on one of the long tables. “Not much call for them now, but we like them. They were bred to hunt big game—boars, bear, wolves, and the like.”

“We met Benji when we were training a couple of that breed,” Cedric said, chuckling heartily at the memory. “Might even have been those very two. We’d set them on the trail of a bear to test them in front of a potential client. Well, our target turned out to be the smartest bear we’d ever dreamed could be. We lost the client, but that was all right. I’m not sure we would have even leased the dogs to him, much less sold outright, which is what he wanted. Later, Benji came in and introduced himself, explained what had happened, said he’d been impressed by the dogs, but not so much that he’d let himself or his demiurge get torn up. Offered to pay us for our lost business, but we told him no matter. Later, he helped us train some other dogs, taught us some hunter’s tricks. All good…”

“And like as not,” Elaine repeated thoughtfully, as if the events had happened yesterday, “we wouldn’t have sold the dogs to that man anyhow. I didn’t much like him.”

Dinner was hearty, the food plain but ample, served on vast platters from which everyone helped themselves.

“The dogs support the lot of us,” Cedric explained. “We don’t sell working dogs unless we like the people, but we lease. Guard dogs are popular, so are ratters. Hunting dogs in season. Not much call for herders, you’d think, here by the town, but there’s some. Retrievers, especially by the water. All works out, don’tcha know.”

Adara thought it must. There was a vital jumble and rumble to the big house, with children spilling up and down the stairs, often chased by dogs. No one was idle. Apparently, Elaine and Cedric applied the same training principles to their children as they did to their dogs. The meal had been served by middle-sized children, cleared away by smaller children. The washing up was a complicated process but, except for occasional shouted orders, Cedric and Elaine were free to visit with their guests.

In the genial chaos, Griffin was accepted without question as a traveler whom Terrell and Adara were escorting to Spirit Bay in order that he might meet with the Old One Who Is Young. Elaine and Cedric seemed to think this the most sensible thing in the world. Here in Spirit Bay, the Old One was viewed as an honored curiosity, not really of the town, but valued by it.

There certainly was no hint of any dark stain on the Old One’s reputation. The longer they were away from Lynn and her ominous tales, the less possible it all seemed. Then Adara would remember Ring and find herself wondering.

Come morning, Adara neatly wrote a letter to the Old One, informing him that she was here, bringing with her a person whom Bruin felt the Old One would like to meet—and who, in turn, very much wanted to meet the Old One.

Elaine suggested her son Edward, a bow-legged, springy boy, constantly accompanied by a low-bodied, short-legged hound, could serve as messenger. Adara was happy to accept. She didn’t think it would be good manners to go up to the Old One’s house herself. It might seem as if she expected to trade on her relationship with Bruin for shelter.

In any case, Adara wanted time to adjust, not only to the idea of seeing the Old One without Bruin’s protective presence, but also to being in a town of this size. She’d climbed out on the roof the night before and marveled at the extent of the rooftops stretched out before her. She’d started counting lights in an attempt to estimate how many people lived there, but had given up before long. It made her nervous to think of so many people living so close together. She’d had to fight against an impulse to let Terrell take over. She’d been a good guide and gotten them here safely. Surely this next part was more a factotum’s job.

But Adara didn’t run. Not only didn’t she want to disappoint Bruin, but Griffin was her discovery. Somehow, that made him her responsibility. No one had said so, but the feeling that Griffin was somehow hers hummed beneath her breastbone, warming her, but making her decidedly uncomfortable at the same time.

*   *   *

Several days passed without reply from the Old One Who Is Young. Griffin, accustomed to a world in which the only restriction of communication was personal willingness to communicate, was driven to distraction by speculations that the Old One was avoiding them.

Neither Adara nor Terrell shared his apprehension. They admitted it would have been possible for the Old One to reply by sending a message back with young Edward, but, as Adara said, “We don’t even know if the Old One is in residence. He usually is—or at least that is the impression he gives—but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t leave for a few days at a time.”

“But wouldn’t someone on his staff have sent a note to let us know if the Old One was away?”

“Perhaps.” Adara raised and lowered her shoulders in an eloquent shrug. “Perhaps not. They might have had instructions not to do so. The Old One has cultivated a sense of permanence that he might not wish violated. Or he could be ill—and, again, he might not care to admit that.”

“Or he could be hiding something,” Griffin said darkly, “or taking advantage of the delay to make sure anything he wants out of our view is properly concealed.”

“That,” Adara admitted with another eloquent shrug, “is certainly possible.”

Terrell grinned. “In fact, that’s what we’re all thinking, so we might as well face it. However, unless we’re willing to go barging into the Old One’s home and ask why he hasn’t jumped to invite us over, there’s not much we can do. For now, we’ll make ourselves acquainted with Spirit Bay, listen for rumors, and, if we haven’t heard anything in a few more days, send another letter. The one thing we won’t do is prowl the countryside. Given how long we’ve been on the road, that would look suspicious.”

“For everyone but Sand Shadow,” Adara commented. “She can do some preliminary scouting while I stay demurely here in town, awaiting summons to the great man.”

So, for two days they followed this course. Despite his impatience, Griffin found himself fascinated by the town. Spirit Bay was set on a series of gently sloping hills overlooking the blue waters of a vast bay. The Old Empire architects had not stinted on the quality of their materials, so everywhere buildings that had been constructed to furnish the former resort were still evident—often in excellent condition.

The natural stone of the area included a very attractive pale grey granite threaded with streaks of black and pink. The majority of the houses were built from this stone. The styles ranged from water-rounded rock roughly mortared into walls in the poorer sections of town to elegant structures made from cut blocks and slabs. The roofing was primarily of dark grey slate shingle. Doors and wood trim were painted in bright colors.

However, interwoven among this original design were five hundred years of adaptation by an intelligent and healthy population. Even the best architects could not prevent damage by fire, flood, and storm. And, although the original builders’ constructions had been made to appear native to the area, the key word was “appear.” House walls of what looked like solid native stone proved to be hollow, packed with light insulation that doubtless had made the original structure infinitely more comfortable.

Beneath the natural shingles lay an artificial water barrier that, even centuries later, remained intact unless some disaster had broken the seal. Later roofs were far less uniform. The paint trim attempted to maintain the same colorful schemes, but could not maintain the same freshness.

Griffin wondered aloud if the timber and plaster buildings he’d seen in Shepherd’s Call were equally fake.

“Some of them are,” Terrell admitted. “All the houses around the main green, for example, a few of the larger barns. Hard as it may be for you to believe, Shepherd’s Call has actually grown since the days of the seegnur. In those days it was a tiny, picturesque village, a stopping point for hunting parties going up into the mountains. The building where Mistress Cheesemaker makes her home was an inn, as well as what was called a ‘health resort’ in those days.”