Barb Hendee - Rebel Fay

"Stay where you are," Wynn ordered."Chap, make that old man be quiet!"

Chap turned toward the patriarch but held his ground in front of Magiere.

Wynn flinched sharply, glanced at Chap, and then turned wide eyes upon Leesil.

"What?" Magiere asked. "What did Chap say?"

A handful of Anmaglahk came out of the crowd in answer to Most Aged Father's demand. But any attempt to descend into the clearing was cut off by snarling dogs charging. One anmaglahk drew a blade.

Magiere grabbed Wynn's tunic shoulder, shouting at Chap as much as the sage. "Stop this, now! It's not going to work."

"What else have we got?" Leesil argued. "I'm not letting them take you."

"Leesil, go with Chap," Wynn said suddenly. "Now… and when he barks once at you, onlyyou, give Most Aged Father his message from the ancestors."

Magiere had no idea what this meant. Confusion and frustration made her shudder harder. She'd never turned from a fight. But if Leesil, or even Chap or Wynn, came under threat, she wouldn't be able to control herself in this state.

Leesil glared at Chap. "You've been in my head again!"

"Shut your mouth and do it!" Wynn snapped at him.

Magiere grabbed Leesil by the shirtfront. "This is Chap's game now. Follow his lead."

Chap stalked forward across the clearing, and Leesil followed, looking worried.

A shrill whistle like a rushing song carried above the noise of the gathering.

Chap and Leesil were only partway across the field, and even the majay-hi turned confused circles at the sound. A clan elder in a dark brown cloak raised a hand and pointed high beyond Magiere.

Leesil turned, and Chap did as well. Brot'an lost his stoic self-control for an instant as he stared beyond Magiere. She turned around.

From the upper reaches of one bridge-branched oak, something launched from the thick leaves into the air. It spread wings longer than any bird Magiere had ever seen, and spiraled downward in wild arcs. The closer it came, the more Magiere doubted its shape. The majay-hi scattered away as it landed beyond Leesil and Chap. Magiere sucked in a breath and held it.

Not a bird, for-she-had arms and legs. She looked only at Magiere, as if she saw someone familiar.

Her wings were immense, and their combined span was at least three times her height. They folded behind a narrow and slight-boned torso of subtle curves like that of an adolescent girl. She was no taller than an Aruin'nas, and perhaps less. From pinion feathers to the downy covering on her body and face, she was a mottled off-white. Instead of hair, larger feathers combed back like a headdress and were matched by the same on the backs of her forearms and lower legs.

Two huge oval eyes dominated her face, pushed slightly to the sides by a long narrow nose that ended above a small, thin-lipped mouth. Her eyes were like polished stones, dark at first but turning as red as a dove's where they caught sunlight. She cocked her head like a crow, studying Magiere.

This frail creature stepped toward Magiere, rocking slightly upon the earth as if walking wasn't quite natural for her.

" Uirishg ," Wynn said, the word exploding on her exhale.

Magiere couldn't take her eyes from this winged female. The majay-hi pulled farther aside to give her passage. A dry female voice from somewhere behind said, " Seyilf! " The word rattled in Magiere's empty mind until she heard herself try to numbly repeat it. But the closest she got out was "silf."

"The Wind-Blown," Wynn translated.

The silf drew closer and reached up with a hand of narrow fingers. She parted her lips as if to speak, and between them, in place of teeth, were ridges like the edge of a bird's beak inside her mouth. The sound that came out of her throat was somewhere between the cry of a hunting hawk and a sparrow's song.

Gleann came down and stopped beside Wynn. Most of the majay-hi descended to the clearing floor. Even Chap returned with Leesil close behind. Freth headed for Most Aged Father, who now watched in silent suspicion. Brot'an and Sgaile approached behind Leesil.

The silf looked about, growing agitated or nervous, and flexed her wings.

Gleann waved everyone off before they came too close. From behind him, one of the Aruin'nas stepped out.

"This is Tuma'ac," Gleann said in accented Belaskian. "He may be able to translate."

Tuma'ac looked up at Magiere with a vicious twitch of his eye that made the strange markings on his sun-wrinkled face seem to dance. He nodded once to Gleann but looked to Sgaile.

Sgaile regained himself, perhaps remembering his place as adjudicator. "Yes, proceed."

Tuma'ac approached the silf, and indeed she was shorter than he. He motioned with his hands toward himself and spoke to her in his strange tongue. The odd cry erupted from the silf again, sounding much the same as before to Magiere. Tuma'ac blinked twice as he looked sidelong at Magiere, but his sudden shock faded in disgust. He barked something at Gleann.

Gleann's high eyebrows rose even higher. "He says the seyilf called you 'kin'… or blood of her kind."

Magiere looked to Leesil, who only shook his head, and then to Wynn.

The sage was horrified. She gave Magiere a quick shake of her head. Not in confusion but more that she couldn't speak her mind here and now.

It was enough to bring Magiere to her senses, enough to call up memories of a hidden room beneath the keep of her undead father.

One of the decayed bodies there had rotted feathers among its bones. Wynn called them Uirishg, the five mythical races, of which the elves and dwarves were the only known two. Five beings had been slaughtered in that hidden blood rite to make Magiere's birth possible.

Magiere turned cold inside, looking back into the silf s dark eyes.

It cried again, and the chain translation passed once more to Gleann.

"She says you are not to be harmed… her people will not tolerate any violence against one of their own."

"That cannot be true!" Most Aged Father shouted. "You translate incorrectly. And even so, how could she know?"

Again the chain of words passed, but this time Gleann stumbled and spoke one elvish word to Wynn. The sage seemed to have difficulty.

"Something like…" she began and shook her head. "She is… a spiritual leader of some kind. 'Spirit-talker' is the closest I can think of."

Gleann turned toward Most Aged Father. "If you wish to call Tuma'ac or the seyilf a liar, then do so for yourself and not through me. Do we now reject the word of those we promised to protect and hide in our mountains?"

Wynn shifted close to Magiere with a whisper. "The feather and berries in the mountain passage. It was one ofthem..one of the seyilf."

The silf turned away. Her flurried thrash of wings sent majay-hi scattering, as she half leaped and flew to the piles of stones that Sgaile had left at the clearing's edge. She grabbed a black one and tossed it across the clearing.

It tumbled to a halt before Most Aged Father, and he shook visibly as his expression turned livid.

The silf screeched again, and Tuma'ac grunted in satisfaction before speaking to Gleann.

"She calls us to vote," Gleann said, pointing to the stone, "and gives that of her people… against the claim of Most Aged Father."

"Do the advocates have anything further to present?" Sgaile asked quietly.

Brot'an shook his head once. But Most Aged Father clutched at Freth, whispering harshly. Freth kept shaking her head in denial.

"Your answer, advocate!" Sgaile called with more force.

Freth stood up, and her head dropped as she shook it slowly. "No… nothing."

Sgaile stepped to the clearing's center. "The Advocates have retired. We ask the elders to deliberate and render judgment on the claim presented."

Gleann didn't return to his clan. Instead, he simply cast a stone-black-and gave Magiere a curt bow. It was a kind gesture, but not enough to make her hopeful.