Fyvesdee, the 25th of Harvest, 768 A.E.

  Anthea pulled herself up into the crotch of an elm tree, bracing one foot in the narrow confluence between the two main trunks of the birch so she could look out ahead. Bedros watched from below with his arms out, looking up at her with his large eyes and waiting to catch her in case she fell.

  From her vantage point along the trail of bluish footprints they’d been following, Anthea could see a village of rough wooden houses. At first, she thought they were storage sheds or something of that sort, so crudely were they constructed compared to the grand and intricately built Aurean structures she had lived in and grown up around, but when she saw people coming and going from them, she realized what they were. It was appalling to her to see that people could live in such squalor. No wonder lowlanders were purported to be carriers of so many diseases.

  Her eyes drifted beyond the small fields and fenced in areas that were parceled out to each of the homes to the fortress beyond. As primitive as these people seemed, it surprised her that these folks had been able to assemble such a large structure. Outwardly, it wasn’t that impressive in terms of decorations, but with the earthworks, the palisade, and the actual reinforced building beyond, it must have been a large undertaking to create for such savages.

  In front of the fortress there was a crowd gathering. The silvery-blue footsteps led a snaking trail through the village and up to the crowd, where they were hard to see through the shifting crowd, but then, they had also been visible even through dense vegetation. They didn’t require an actual line of sight.

  Her eyes narrowed on a pair of figures standing on a raised platform before the entire assembled crowd. One of them held an elongated package wrapped in cloth aloft, while the other, a vastly larger man, seemed to taunt him. The footprints seemed to lead to the smaller man. Various crowd noises, mostly cheers and jeers, drifted back to Anthea, but never enough to hear and understand.

  “Bedros.” She called down the tree.

  He grunted and stepped back a bit to get a better look at her. His anatomy did not allow for a wide range of up and down motion in his neck, though it did allow for a regular range of left and right movement. Even still, Ox-Men tended to twist at the waist instead of turning their neck or shoulders.

  “Hand me my flower box, please. I need to hear what’s going on, and I have a flower that is perfectly suited for that task.”

  Bedros nodded his heavy head, and sighed, not liking that she was going to do yet another enchantment. He pulled the box out of her supplies and lifted it up toward her, but she was no longer looking down and waiting to grab it.

  Her eyes had gone back to the crowd ahead. She watched as the smaller man of the two on stage drew back the cloth from around the long object he held, exposing an arc-lance. She blinked in surprise.

  “Surely not.” She whispered to herself as she watching as the distant figure lowered the arc-lance toward the second, larger man. She said this both because she didn’t expect him to have an arc-lance, and because she couldn’t imagine that he would publicly execute this man in front of all these people. “Savages.”

  Bedros grunted again, unable to see from his place what she could see from her vantage point. He continued to hold the box aloft for her, even though she had seemingly forgot about it.

  Then, abruptly, she was clambering down the tree. She dropped the last two Mayters without slowing down. Her graceful legs absorbed the impact of landing. Then her hands scrambled through her baggage to retrieve the arc-sword she’d taken from Vitalis, and then without warning, she was off toward the settlement, leaving Bedros to stare after her in wonder. He recovered his wits after a moment and then took off after her; he paused only to snatch up their belongings in his massive hands before hurrying after her.

  Anthea’s feet hardly seemed to touch the path. Small puffs of dust were the only sign of her passing, each blooming and dying in scant moments under the evening sun. Bedros’ own footfalls were much more substantial. His hooves churned up the dirt and gravel beneath him, but Anthea was too far ahead for him to easily catch. She would reach the lowlanders before he could stop her.

  Rolf stared at the arc-lance in disbelief. Just a couple Ouers ago he’d had the thing shooting all kinds of sparks. Now it was doing nothing. His honor and credibility would be ruined. He might not ever live this down. First the ship had cost him his hunt and now it might cost him everything.

  Lamont’s deep laugh roused him out of his introspection.

  “Do you see? As always, Rolf has proven to be more talk and bluster than deed. He puffs his chest out and makes us all gather ‘round to see what wonders he has accomplished, and he gives us this…” Lamont pointed at the lance. “I imagine it’d make a good walking stick, or perhaps a fire poker.”

  The crowd laughed. Rolf looked out at the laughing faces, sensing them all slip away from him and to Lamont. He had worked the crowd up and let them down, only to hand them over to Lamont. The large man had always known what to say and when to say it. Looking at him now, as he emphatically worked the crowd, swaying them to favor him, Rolf couldn’t help but be impressed, if jealous.

  “Why we bother with such a man is beyond me. Yet he holds a Familienheime that is empty of a woman for making a family with him. It’s of no surprise, since he can’t even hunt. How would he feed a wife, let alone children?”

  Rolf’s jaw tightened in anger, and he took a step toward Lamont. Any real Kerathi male would not hesitate to fight another man, even if the other man was much larger, as was the case here. Lamont turned an eye toward him and shook his head.

  “Even now he plays at being Kerathi. Look how he pretends to get angry, yet we all know he will not challenge me. Despite his hair color and features, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were the get of an Aynglican raider.”

  The crowd quieted. This was a strong insult and not one made lightly. It was a very bold claim for Lamont to make, especially since Rolf’s mother was now his father’s mate. That Rolf might be the child of one of the hated Aynglicans, a people with whom the Kerathi had much history and worse blood, was a challenge that could not go unanswered.

  Rolf let out a cry and threw himself forward, stabbing outward at Lamont, bayoneting with the lance that was nearly as long as he was tall. Its brassy surface was dull beneath the cloud sky as Lamont swiftly slid aside, letting the point pass by him harmlessly. He let Rolf press his charge and push the lance forward while he kept the weapon pinned between his arm and side as Rolf slid forward.

  It took two forward steps for the realization that he had not just impaled Lamont to come to Rolf. By then he was staring at one of Lamont’s oversized fists, its knuckles white and bare of the thick hair that sprouted up on the back of his hands.

  There was an impact. Stars danced and darkness swirled before Rolf’s eyes, and then he felt a second impact as he hit the wooden platform. Pain rushed in then, giving him no chance to adjust to his new prostrated orientation. His ears rang with the noise of the crowd and more of Lamont’s boastful claims, and he saw the point of the lance come closer, hovering near his chest; only this time, he did not hold it.

  Over the din came a shrieking call. At first the crowd ignored it, as if the noise had not registered with their ears, but as the echo of the piercing noise dissipated from among them, they began to turn to look for the source.

  Rolf, being higher up off the ground than all except Lamont, and therefore better able to see around, spotted the light-haired girl running toward the crowd. Her strange garb and the light, almost musical syllables were not so startling as the blade she held aloft as she ran. It glowed with the fire of the morning sun. Her hair looked like polished silver, and the planes of her youthful face seemed chiseled from white marble. Yet there was something Kerathi about the fierce snarl of her girlish features.

  Behind her came a monstrously large man-beast, something out of the storybooks. While he had never seen one before, and he knew they didn’t inhabit any islands this far north, there could be no mistaking the three-Mayter or taller creature as an Ox-Man. The Ox-Man’s powerful thighs looked puny next to its even more muscular arms, each of which was a big around as Rolf’s waist; they were arms that looked all the more intimidating by the massive mallet the Ox-Man carried two-handed. The horned creature threw back its head and made a noise that sounded somewhere between a bull’s snort and a bear’s roar.

  While Lamont and the others stood dumfounded, Rolf rolled away form the point of the arc-lance and dropped down among the crowd before he gave Lamont another chance to kill him. He staggered through the crowd, trying to push his way toward the young girl who had saved him, even if that had not been her intention. Rolf heard her lilting voice rise above the noise of the crowd once more, and saw the crowd begin to part before her flashing sword.

  Kerathi were nothing if not brave, so few of the people ran outright, though many watched the person beside them, ready to run if someone else ran first, but each was unwilling to be that first person. Mothers and fathers pushed children behind them, and those who carried weapons or tools of their trades brandished them as a warning to the girl and the Ox-Man to not get too close.

  Rather suddenly, Rolf found himself outside of the crowd, who backed away as he alone approached the girl and the Ox-Man. Of course, a few warning feints by the Ox-Man with his massive mallet were enough of an incentive to give the pair room. He glanced over his shoulder, only to see his townsfolk give him more room. Lamont stood on the platform still, watching with assured confidence that Rolf would be killed by these two visitors, and if not, he had still made great gains this Dee against his ‘brother.’

  When he turned back toward Anthea, he found her sword pointed at his chest. “What is it? Who are you?” He asked, looking at her face. She seemed to glow radiantly, as if she were sucking in the rays of the sun.

  Anthea let loose another string of lightly accented syllables. They flowed off her tongue like water, and he understood few if any of them. Some sounded like words he knew, but they were all delivered in such rapidity that his mind could not decipher their meaning. Rolf blinked in confusion, ever aware of the Ox-Man’s pair of large eyes glowering at him from above flared nostrils and an open mouth of flat yellow teeth.

  “What are you saying?”

  Anthea’s eyes narrowed. She took a deep breath, almost like a pause for her mind to switch gears. “You speak this then?” She asked.

  “Yes. I understand you.”

  She nodded, smiling briefly because he understood. Then her expression resumed its fierce cast. “Why did you dirty the bodies of my kind?”

  Rolf scratched his cheek as he considered her words, though the action nearly caused her to put the sword through his chest. He slowly lowered his hand to avoid another near-fatal twitch of her blade. “Dirty?”

  “You put mud on their faces and stole from them. You broke our customs.” She accused.

  Rolf had never been one to like being accused of something, whether he did it or not, but he bit back a self-righteous tone that he felt. “I did? I did what our people do with bodies. I didn’t know I was doing something wrong.”

  “You steal from the dead?” She asked incredulously.

  “The living can better use their possessions. Cainel says so.” He replied, earning murmurs of agreement from the crowd behind him.

  Anthea nodded briefly, recognizing Cainel’s name. She eyed the crowd warily. “Have you seen my father?”

  “Your father?”

  “The flowers led me to you. Their power brought me here.”

  Rolf was not the only one to be stunned into silence here. A hush fell over the crowd again.

  That this foreign girl claimed to be able to use the magicks of flowers like only the Thaumaturges of his people could, was no small surprise. For centuries, the other peoples of Elegia had tried to breed with the Kerathi to introduce the ability to harness the power of flowers into their own races. Many Thaumaturges had been raped and forced to give birth to children that had never carried their enchanter’s traits into their captors’ race. The truth was no one really knew what made a woman able to become a Thaumaturge.

  “Flowers? You were led here by flowers to see me?” Rolf asked doubtfully.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Anthea nervously shifted from one foot to the next. She looked to be considering something weighty, something that she wasn’t sure she wanted to share. “I spoke the words that came into my mouth when I bid it to lend me its power.”

  “A Thaumaturge.” Rolf whispered, awe-struck. “But you are not Kerathi.”

  “You are Kerathi then? I was not sure what you are.”

  “Yes, we all are.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, but then snapped at him, “Where is my father? The flowers would not have led me here to you if you did not know.”

  “Unless he was one of the men on the crashed machine, I do not know. I have never seen your kind before this Dee.” Rolf replied. “Please believe me. I do not know you or your father.”

  The fight went out of her then. She withered visibly, tired and heartsick. “So, I have been lied to. My flowers lied to me and led me here.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Bedros put a heavy hand on her shoulder; it wrapped around a large portion of her upper body, but he did so gently. She raised a hand to grasp one of his thick fingers, like a babe grasping at a mother’s fingers with his much smaller hand.

  “What goes on here?” An authoritative voice called from the crowd.

  The crowd, still interested in the exchange between their townsman, the strange girl, and the Ox-Man, took a moment to realize who had said these words. Then, realizing that they impeded the way of their village’s chieftain, they scattered before him to give him a clear path. Rolf swallowed hard as he met eyes with Esben, chieftain of Harsbrukke.

  Esben’s arms were bare to the shoulders, displaying a crisscross pattern of scars that were a combination of self-inflicted ornamentation and battle-earned remembrances of wounds. His heavy hide vest was laced up the front and ornamented with strips of furs from a great striped cat that he had killed many Yarres ago on an island far to the south. Each of his hands was covered in black leather gauntlets. The gauntlets had dozens of sharp teeth set in iron mountings on the backs of his hands and his forearms which poked out in a series of dangerous rings that could be used to tear a man’s face apart in battle.

  Esben’s head was shorn close to his scalp, as was most of his beard, except for the part around his mouth and chin, which hung down halfway to his waist and was heavily laden with beads that proclaimed his many honors. Esben fixed his eyes on the trio before him, one dark green like pines in the depth of the Saysuhn of White, and the other a broken iris, half of which was the same green and the other half permanently red with blood that had never drained completely way, the result of a battle injury that had also left a white, puckered scar running from his eyebrow up his forehead and back through his scalp to the crown of his head.

  “Who are these strangers?” Esben demanded, seemingly unworried by the sizeable Ox-Man that stood before him, as if it were an everydee occurrence. That both of his hands were resting on the grips of his flintlock pistols that were holstered on either hip was telling though; Esben was taking these two strangers seriously.

  “Who are you to demand anything of us?” Anthea demanded.

  A vein stood out in Esben’s forehead as he fought to control anger at being spoken to in such a manner. “I am Esben, chieftain of this village. You two are strangers, and you have come unannounced into our village, brandishing weapons. That is not the way of Kerathi. If you have some business with this boy here, be done with it quickly and leave.”

  “Hersker,” Rolf began, using the honorable title for Esben as he was required to do before addressing one greater than any other among the clan, “the girl, she spoke of flowers and how they heeded her will.”

  Esben blinked in surprise. “Her? Surely not.”

  “He speaks the truth. I bid them to lead me to my father, but they led me to him instead. I would know what he does of my father’s fate. We were separated a Dee ago.” She said slowly, struggling to remember the words her mother had taught her of the lowlander language.

  “And he will answer what you ask of him.” Esben replied, eyeing the girl’s weapon as he spoke. “In fact. The Ouer grows late. He will put you up in his Familienheime, which is more than spacious enough for a single man and two visitors.”

  “I don’t–“ Anthea started to protest.

  Bedros cut her off with a grunt. She glanced back to him, lowering the arc-sword finally, more because her arm was tired than anything else. Bedros gestured to her, telling her that they had no better plans or ideas. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he was right. They had no other leads.

  “Fine.” She relented with a sigh. “We will stay for the time being. Nextdee we will continue on our way. We cannot tarry long, as we have a long road ahead of us.”

  “Fair enough.” Esben replied as he gave Rolf a look that promised that they would have a lengthy chat later. Then he turned on his heel to head back into the Stammheim. The crowd parted before him easily this time, like water before the prow of a great ship.

  Before Esben could pass beyond the crowd, Lamont called out, “And what of little Rolf? He’s shamed himself in front of us all. He’s failed to live up to a challenge.”

  Rolf turned toward the platform, eyeing the man who called him brother. As much as he wanted to say something in his defense, the words would not come to him. What Lamont said was true, and seeing Lamont absently twirl the lance in his two heavy hands just added insult to injury.

  “What is this challenge?” She demanded.

  Rolf shook his head. “It’s just… I had to bring in something impressive when I went hunting. The airboat crashing down scared everything away. I had hoped the weapon from the ship would have been enough to alleviate my loss of face, but the weapon did not work.”

  “It works; it just needs a charge. It has none right now.”

  He looked at her in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  She grinned, mischievously eyeing Lamont as he twisted the lance hand over hand, as if it were a staff he was using to ward off attackers. “Watch and learn.” She drew back her arc-sword, and with a forward motion squeezed the trigger in the handle, unleashing a bolt of crackling electricity toward the arc-lance Lamont held.

  The arc-lance flew out of Lamont’s hands and stuck into the earthen rampart that ringed the Stammheim. His jaw hung open in surprise, and he shook his hands, wringing out the pain and numbness caused by the arc-sword. The crowd, which had cringed back in fear of the loud crack of energy released from the arc-sword, now alternated in looking at the mysterious girl with the sword that could call the power of the heavens down on a man to the man who had been on the receiving end of her fury.

  Esben cleared his throat from the edge of the crowd. “Any shame Rolf might have incurred from his failure will be looked over if his story of this Aurean crash is proven to be true. We will send out a search party in the morning to verify his claims. And… he must also not anger his guests tonight, for we Kerathi are gracious hosts to those who show themselves to be friends, and fierce enemies to those who prove otherwise.”

  There was more than a hint of warning to his words, and it did not escape Anthea or Bedros. “I will see you again before you leave on the morrow, Thaumaturge. I hope that either I or Rolf has a chance to learn your story before you go.”

  “Perhaps, Hersker, but I will make no promises.” Anthea replied, though at the moment she had no intention of doing anything more than grilling Rolf for answers.

  “Until the morning then.” Esben said, raising his left hand in front of him, fingers spread – a Kerathi gesture of farewell.

  Anthea mimicked the gesture when she saw that Rolf was doing it as well. The others among the crowd did not, but then, they hadn’t been spoken to.

  Lamont stood flabbergasted upon the platform, all but forgotten after the small foreign girl disarmed him from afar. “How did it come to this? I nearly won. Everything would have been mine.” He whispered to himself, but no one paid him any attention.

  Most of the crowd made themselves scarce after Esben’s departure, but a few stayed to watch what would happen next.

  “I am Rolf.” Rolf announced, holding out his hand to the girl.

  Anthea eyed him with a bit of suspicion. Her appraising eyes tried to gauge his age, which was hard to discern under his beard and because his kind looked rather different from hers. “I am Anthea.” She announced.

  “And your companion?” Rolf asked, eyeing the three-Mayter tall Ox-Man warily.

  “His name is Bedros. It means ‘stone.’”

  “I have never met an Ox-Man before, or an Aurean for that matter.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, punctuated by the laughter of a group of children who were pointing at Bedros and commenting on the vast differences between their facial features and his. The Ox-Man ignored this as best he could, but a warning glance sent their way told them very plainly that he was not to be bothered.

  “I… uhm… I’ll take you to my Familienheime, the house of my father.” Rolf managed to say, though the words were thick on his tongue and his mind slow.

  Anthea nodded. “Very good. We are both tired from traveling.”

  Rolf led the way through the last few people who stood around to observe, but they all gave the trio a wide berth. Rolf couldn’t help but let his hand stray now and then to the comforting steel barrel of his flintlock pistol. He didn’t expect to be getting a lot of sleep that night.

  Though Rolf’s Familienheime turned out to be rather austere from the outside, which was much in keeping with the rustic nature of the settlement, it was nicer inside than she expected. It was actually a pleasant surprise for Anthea to find that the homestead was not just a single room shack enclosed by log walls and covered with a sod roof.

  The inside was sectioned off into cooking, sleeping, and storage areas, and the walls were smoothly finished – or smooth compared to many things in this settlement at least. The furniture was well made if simple, and with all of the hand-sewn blankets and handcrafted details within the home, there was a definite feel of home to the place – a very lived-in feel.

  Bedros grunted approval, hunching under the ceiling that was too low for him. He found an open swathe of floor and claimed it as his own, sitting in the middle of the large clay-red rug while he unburdened himself of their baggage. Anthea kept her opinions to herself, choosing the nearest chair to sink into and get off her feet, which ached from the Ouers of hiking and exploring.

  “It’s probably not what you’re used to, but it’s what I can offer.” Rolf said self-defensively when he saw the two of them looking around the place.

  “It’s fine.” Anthea replied, moving to a window, covered only with a heavy curtain, which she pulled aside to let the last light of the Dee in. “It’ll be dark tonight.”

  Rolf was surprised by the fear in her voice, but he thought perhaps he had heard her wrong. After all, she did have a strong accent, and he might be misinterpreting things. “The words you spoke before, that other language –” He trailed off.

  “It was High Elegian. I had forgotten that your kind spoke Low Elegian.”

  “My kind.” Rolf found the words strange. “So, you are Aurean then?”

  Anthea’s eyes flickered over to him. “Yes.” She answered, but Rolf could tell that was not the whole truth. He knew there was more to her story than she let on.

  “How old are you?”

  “Fourteen Yarres.”

  “I see.” Rolf mused. “You are young then. I wondered what a girl like you might be doing traveling without your mate, but you are too young for that after all.”

  Anthea glared at him, tugged the curtains shut, and walked over to Bedros. “We’re going to need to set up the crystal pods. This shanty has no lighting.”

  Bedros nodded and proceeded to dig the roughly spherical orbs out of their impressive pile of baggage.

  “Crystal pods? They give off light, I take it? Are you afraid of the dark or something?”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand me, after all, I’m just a young girl to one such as you.” Anthea said dismissively. “I was a fool for thinking perhaps you could help me find my father.”

  “What have I said that angered you?” Rolf asked.

  “Figure it out yourself.” Anthea snapped at him, wearing a weary look on her face.

  Rolf’s eyes flashed dark with anger. “It’s bad enough that you had to interfere with my squabble with Lamont, but now you show no gratitude for my gracious offer of my home. I don’t even know you, yet I am letting you stay here.”

  “Oh, is that it? I didn’t know your hospitality was such a sought-after commodity.” Anthea said tartly, her mother’s language coming back to her quickly when she grew angry. “Come, Bedros.” Anthea ordered, tugging at the Ox-Man’s hand as she stood. “We’ll find somewhere else to sleep. You’d just get fleas here anyway.”

  Bedros huffed deeply and reluctantly began gathering their things again.

  “Wait.” Rolf said, holding up his hand. “I’m sorry. You just don’t understand what all this has done to me.”

  Anthea crossed her arms in front of her and tapped her foot. “Tell me then.”

  Rolf groaned. “It’s complicated.”

  “Explain.” Anthea ordered. When he hesitated, she nudged one of Bedros’ thick thighs with her foot. He grunted. “Hurry, we have to go.”

  “Alright, alright. Cainel’s wrath but you’re insistent.” He took a breath. “I stood to lose much face this Dee because your people’s ship disrupted my hunt. When I couldn’t get your weapon to work, my reputation was forfeit. I hoped to use that weapon as an alternative payment of my honor debt owed from the challenge, but it didn’t work. I could have lost this home.” Rolf looked around the place. “My father built this. I can’t give it up. It’s my last tie to him, that and my rifles. Yet Lamont nearly killed me, because I acted rashly upon being dishonored.”

  “Your father is dead then?” She asked softly, aware that Bedros had stopped packing to listen.

  “Yes. It’s been about two Yarres now. Lamont’s father always coveted my father’s wife – my mother, Kiersten – and he took her as his own after father died.”

  “I see.” Anthea said, genuine concern in her voice. “I too, might have lost my father. I came here searching for a sign of him, but the flowers have led me astray it seems, since you know nothing of him.”

  “I would help if I could, believe me, but I know nothing.”

  “But why would the flowers lead me to you?”

  Rolf threw up his hands, clueless. “I have no idea. Perhaps Gandahar and Sellae are having fun at your expense. The Gods and Goddesses are fickle sometimes, especially those who deal with fate and chance. They are quick to favor someone and quicker still to abandon someone.”

  Anthea furrowed her brow at the mention of the Gandahar, The God of Fortune and Chance and Sellae, the Goddess of Luck and Gambling. She seriously doubted that any of the deities had any invested interest in her. She put those thoughts aside for now. “Bedros, we will stay the night. We leave on the morrow.”

  Rolf let out a sigh of relief at this, for he remembered all too well the words of Esben. “I will get blankets for you.” As he moved away, he added in a humorous tone, “Ones without fleas, right?”

  “Yes.” Anthea replied, offering a polite smile.

  Rolf walked out of the room and into his storeroom. There, on a high shelf, were the spare wool blankets. He pulled all of them down, dusted them off as he searched for signs that moths that might have gotten into them, and walked back out into the main room where his company sat on the floor.

  Anthea sat with her back to him, and the failing light glinted brightly off her light hair. She seemed to brighten the entire room, like she gave off an aura of warmth and light – an ambiance. Her clothing was strangely crafted of very fine cloth, finer than he had ever seen. On a more mature girl with a womanlier figure, it would have been scandalously formfitting.

  Bedros on the other hand, was quiet and seemed reserved, as well as physically quite massive. Rolf figured the Ox-Man probably weighed as much as a horse if not more. He wore little more than a loincloth, which left his powerful body out for all to see, and it was intimidating in its musculature. Even the coarse hair across his head, thighs, and upper body couldn’t hide the strength of his body.

  “Here.” Rolf offered, holding out the blankets.

  “Thank you.” Anthea replied, taking them and handing them to Bedros, who seemingly acted as her porter and baggage mule all in one.

  “I apologize for what I said before. It was, ungracious.”

  “Don’t worry.” Anthea replied. “I too, was being a bit pushy. I get cranky when the sun goes down.”

  As if on cue, the crystal pods sparked to life, bathing the room in as much light as if the sun were still up and shining. Bedros grinned mirthfully and nodded his head. Rolf’s eyes were drawn to the Ox-Man’s curled horns, which glinted like ivory in the light.

  “Can he speak? Bedros?”

  Anthea smiled at Bedros first, and then at Rolf. “Not as we can. He has another way of speaking; with gestures and the noises he makes. It takes a while to learn it, much like any language I suppose. He can write in High Elegian too.”

  “I can’t even read Low Elegian, let alone High.” Rolf admitted, sinking into a chair that he drew close enough to them that he would be at a comfortable speaking distance.

  That earned a grimace from Anthea, who greatly enjoyed reading. “My mother taught me Low Elegian, and my father taught me High Elegian, as that is the tongue of his people.”

  “Your mother was not Aurean?”

  “She was Kerathi.”

  “A Kerathi!” Rolf exclaimed. “That explains your abilities. She must have been a Kerathi Thaumaturge – a flower enchanter.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You said ‘was.’ Does that mean she is deceased?”

  “Eight Yarres ago.” Anthea answered, surprising herself that she was opening up to a stranger and telling him so many things about herself. “I have forgotten much about her.”

  Rolf nodded solemnly. “I am sorry. I know what that’s like.” He watched her then, and young as she was, he found himself attracted to the vibrancy she exhibited. In the full light, she was a different person, so alive and glowing. “I fear that one Dee I won’t be able to call to mind the face of my father.”

  Anthea nodded knowingly. “I have trouble remembering my mother’s face sometimes. All I do is look in the mirror. Half of her is in me, so I will always have that, if nothing else.”

  “I had never thought of things that way.” Rolf said, trying to visualize his father from memories of what his own face looked like. Certainly, there were similarities between his features and those of his father. “I was wrong for calling you young earlier. You are wise beyond your Yarres I think.”

  “That, too, is my mother’s doing. She loved and liked to enjoy herself, but she was also very serious about life itself. She talked to me at great length about life and what it would hold for me.”

  “She sounds like she was an intelligent woman. Would that mine was such. My mother is a capable woman, but she was always too willing to let someone else tell her what to do instead of thinking for herself.” Rolf said, shaking his head sadly.

  “Perhaps it is the way of your people. My mother was not exactly well-loved among our kind.” Anthea admitted. “Her ways were unpopular and seen as uncouth.”

  Rolf noticed Bedros stiffen as Anthea noticed this. His large mahogany eyes implored Rolf to change the subject.

  “Are you hungry?” Rolf asked, standing with such suddenness that he startled Anthea.

  She took a calming breath and nodded. “Yes, anything will do. Keep in mind that Bedros only eats plants though. He does not eat meat.”

  Rolf’s face twisted into a frown. “That must be unpleasant. All the best foods come from animals.”

  “It is their way. Right, Bedros?”

  He nodded and then gave Rolf a look of thanks. Rolf gave the slightest of nods back, a gesture that went unnoticed by Anthea, who was busy brushing her hair with a silver brush. Bedros’ protective gaze was ever on her, and he seemed pleased that she was going about such regular tasks. Whatever kept her mind off her missing father couldn’t be bad, Rolf supposed

  As he gathered food for the three of them to eat, Rolf couldn’t help but wonder what the Gods had in store for him. That they’d placed these two in his home couldn’t be a random occurrence. There had to be a reason for it, he just had to find it.