Barb Hendee - Rebel Fay

"Chap?" she called in a harsh whisper.

Chap rushed into a gully behind Lily. Ahead, the pack waited by a tiny stream. The black-gray elder lifted his head from lapping water gurgling over stones.

Chap had not expected the pack to be so near, but they must have gathered to wait on Lily. As he approached beside her, the majay-hi circled about with huffs and switching tails, one by one touching heads as they passed her or him.

Spry bodies surrounded him with warmth. One yearling colored much like himself charged playfully and butted Chap with his head. Chap shifted aside.

He rejoiced in their welcome, but urgency kept him from languishing. He was neither certain how they could help nor how he could ask. Lily seemed to understand but would the others? On impulse, he pressed his head to hers and again showed her the stolen memory of Nein'a's hidden prison.

Lily stayed against him, listening until he finished, then darted away.

She brushed heads with the large black elder. An instant later, the male turned and touched a passing steel-gray female, the other twin. The rest joined in, and Chap watched the swirling dance of memory-talk as it passed through the pack.

The elder's crystal blue eyes turned upon Chap.

The old one tilted his gray muzzle, and then hopped the stream and scrambled up the gully's embankment more fleetly than his age would suggest.

Lily trotted back to Chap and pressed her head to his. He saw a memory of the two of them resting beneath a leaning cedar after a long run. It seemed he was to wait-but for what?

Chap's frustration mounted, still wondering if the pack truly understood what he needed.

A rolling, moaning howl like a bellow carried through the forest. It came from the direction where the elder had disappeared.

Lily brushed Chap's head with a memory of running as the rest of the pack charged off. He followed her up the embankment and through the woods. When he cleared the close trees, he saw the elder.

The black-gray majay-hi stood on a massive cracked boulder jutting from a hillside of sparse-leafed elms. The pack remained below, and he appeared to be waiting and watching for something. The elder glanced upslope over his shoulder, and Chap stepped back from the boulder's base to see.

Branches of a hillside elm appeared to move as if drifting through the trees. Two eyes high above the ground sparked in the half-moon's light andcame downslope into clear sight.

Head high, the silver-gray deer descended, coming up beside the grizzle-jawed old majay-hi. Its tineless curved antlersrose to a height no man or elf could reach. The shimmer of its long-haired coat turned to pure white along its throat and belly. Its eyes were like those of the majay-hi, clear blue and crystalline.

The deer slowly lowered its head with a turn of its massive neck.

Lily nudged Chap, pushing him forward.

Chap did not understand. Was he to go to this creature?

She shoved him again and then darted around the boulder's side. She stood waiting, and Chap loped after her. Before he caught up, Lily headed upslope, and he followed. At the height where stone met the earth slope, she stood aside and lifted her muzzle toward the silver deer.

Chap hesitated. What did this have to do with finding Nein'a?

Lily pressed against him. Along with a memory echo of the tall elven woman he had first shown her, Lily showed him something more-a memory of the pack elder touching heads with one of these crystal-eyed deer.

Chap froze as the deer swung its head toward him.

He could not have imagined this creature might communicate in the same way as the pack. A tingling presence washed over him as he peered into the deer's eyes.

It felt so vague… like one of his kin off at a distance. And yet not quite like them.

The majay-hlwere descended from the first born-Fay, born into flesh within wolves. Over many generations, the majay-hl had become the "touched" guardians of these lands.

But there were others, it seemed, as Chap had almost forgotten.

Within this deer, the trace of its ancestry was stronger than in the majay-hl, the lingering of born-Fay who had taken flesh in the form of deer and elk.

Chap crept forward to stand below the tall creature-this touched child of his own kin. It stretched out one foreleg and bent the other, until its head came low enough to reach his. Chap pressed his forehead to the deer's, smelling its heavy musk and breath marked by a meal of wild grass and sunflowers. He recalled the memories of Nein'a that he had shared with Lily.

The deer shoved Chap away, nearly knocking him off his feet. It stood silent and waiting.

What had he done wrong?

Lily slid her head in next to his, muzzle against muzzle. Images-and sounds-filled his mind.

A majay-hl howling in the dark.An elven boy calling to another. Singing birds, jabbering fra'cise , and the indignant screech of the tashgalh he had trailed out of the mountain tunnels.

Chap grasped the common thread. The deer wanted a sound. He approached as it lowered its head once more.

With the image of Nein'a in the clearing, Chap called forth a memory of her voice… and that of any who had ever spoken her name.

Nein'a… Cuirin'nen'a… Mother…

Wynn scurried around a domicile tree closest to the forest's edge. She still did not know why there was no one on guard outside, and she could not find

Chap anywhere. But as she turned to go back before being discovered, she heard footsteps.

She ducked low into hiding behind a tree, hoping whoever it was would just pass onward. As she leaned carefully out, she never made it far enough to see.

Wynn's vision spun blackly on a wave of nausea.

Her legs buckled, and she slumped down against the tree's base, clinging to its bulging roots as she covered her mouth and tried not to gag. Bisselber-ries and smoked fish rose in her throat from the evening meal, and the combined taste turned sour.

The loud buzz of an insect or crackling rustle of a leaf in the wind filled her head.

There were no insects and not even a breeze around her in the dark.

Wynn had not heard these in her mind for more than a moon. The last time was at the border of the Warlands.

Somewhere out in the forest, Chap now called to the Fay.

It had all started with a ritual in Droevinka, when she tried to make herself see the Spirit element that permeated all things. She had been trying to track an undead for Magiere, and then could not end the magic coursing through her flesh. Chap had to cleanse the mantic sight from her. But on the border at Soladran, it began to return in unexpected ways. She heard the buzz of leaf-winged insects whenever Chap communed with his kin.

Wynn swallowed her food back down, trying to quiet her gagging breaths. She braced for the onslaught of Chap's kin answering back in a chorus of leaf-wings that would make her head ache and the world whirl before her eyes.

It never came. Only one leaf-wing buzzed in her mind. The sound began to shape into…

Nein'a… Cuirin'nen'a… Mother…

A chill ran over Wynn's skin.

Words?They came in theElvish dialect of this land. Beneath those were the same echoed in Belaskian and in her own tongue ofNumanese. One voice spoke in many tongues at the same time, all words with the same meaning. Again, no chorus answered back.

Who didChap call out to? Had he found Leesil's mother so close by? He would never try to commune with her-it would not work. To Chap's own knowledge, Wynn was the only one who had ever eavesdropped on him while communing with his kin. And she had never heard words before.

The buzz faded from her mind, leaving only a lingering ache.

But she had clearly heard those words.

There was no time to ponder another disturbing change in her unwanted gift. Chap was out in the forest, seeking Nein'a, and Wynn could not let him go on his own. How did he think he would speak with Nein'a, even if he found her prison?