“Thank you,” said one of the lemmings gravely. “We will send a messenger to the clan to tell of his courage, but we wait now to consult the Sett Owl.”
“She … she will answer no more questions,” stammered Little Fur.
“We do not mean the old Sett Owl,” said a lemming placidly. “We spoke to her yesterday. She said that we must wait to ask our question of the new Sett Owl. She said that today would be the day the new Sett Owl will answer her first question.”
Little Fur pressed her hands to her face, suddenly understanding the boon asked by the Sett Owl. She was to ask the first question of Gem, who feared the beaked house and the still magic. She was to be the means of forcing Gem to become the Sett Owl, despite knowing that the calling would devour the little owl’s life, just as it had done to the old owl. Little Fur felt sick. Of course, Gem could refuse the request, but she would not refuse Little Fur, who had cared for her ever since the Sett Owl had insisted that the owlet was her responsibility.
The lemmings watched her with their small bright eyes full of earnest courtesy. It was all Little Fur could do to ask them where she could find Gem. Several of them pointed to a rough timber hut at the end of the cobbled yard, and Little Fur turned and went slowly toward it. As she neared it, the grizzled rat Gazrak came scuttling out, baring his yellow fangs.
“Stop!” he snarled. “It is sacrilegion for anyone to coming here without being permissioned.” Then the furious red light in the big rat’s eyes faded to wary pink as he recognized Little Fur.
“Greetings, Healer,” he said sullenly, plucking uncomfortably with one claw at the grass and leaves with which he had decorated himself.
“Greetings, Protector of the Small Herness,” Little Fur said, marveling that she could sound so calm when a storm of uncertainties raged inside her. “I must speak to Gem.”
Gem’s self-appointed guardian narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What is Little Fur wanting of Small Herness?”
“I will tell that to her,” Little Fur said.
Gazrak gave a long hiss of frustration. “Small Herness not being here! Now that she can fly, she must soar and hunt! I told her that a Sett Owl has more important things to do. But she says she cannot be Sett Owl, and she will not!” He twitched his ragged ears in a mixture of anxiety and ire. “Stupid Crow should never have shown her how to fly! She flew up, and now her head is full of clouds!” This was said with real venom, and Little Fur guessed the rat was jealous of Gem’s fondness for Crow.
“I am sure she will return soon,” Little Fur said.
Gazrak all but spat at her in his fury, “You know nothing, Healer! Herness will never escape the clouds in her head!”
Suddenly there was a flutter of wings overhead, and a moment later Gem landed, hooting softly with laughter. To Little Fur’s surprise, Crow landed beside her a few wingbeats later.
Ignoring the sleek black bird, Gazrak rushed up to the small owl and began grooming her anxiously, smoothing feathers that were untidy because she had not lost all of her baby down. Gem bore the rat’s attention stoically, letting him fuss until he had calmed himself down.
“Herness must be careful,” Gazrak scolded at last.
“Dear Protector,” Gem said, and she reached out and pecked tenderly at Gazrak’s scarred head.
Gazrak seemed almost transfixed, but then he shook himself and told Gem with much haughtiness that Little Fur wished to consult with her.
“Thank you, Protector,” Gem said meekly. This seemed to mollify the rat, who went scuttling away with his nose in the air.
“Stupidness,” Crow snorted.
“He is my protector, and you are my brother,” Gem said reproachfully. “I love you both and wish you would not always fight. It makes my head hurt.”
Crow ruffled his feathers and looked slightly ashamed.
“Greetings, Gem,” Little Fur said, kneeling down beside Gem. The owlet immediately fluttered up onto her shoulder and tried to snuggle into Little Fur’s wild red hair, just as she had done when they had traveled together to the ice mountains. But Gem had grown, and after a moment, she fluttered from Little Fur’s shoulder to perch upon a metal post rising from the earth.
“Bigness is not a thing that can be avoided,” Gem observed wistfully.
CHAPTER 5
The Guide
“I have been to see the Sett Owl,” Little Fur said slowly.
“The Sett Owl is the perfection of bigness,” Gem said. “There is no other like her.”
“I think it is true that there will never be another like her,” Little Fur agreed.
Gem said nothing, but the laughter was fading from her round, gold-flecked eyes.
Little Fur tried to think of what was fair to say and what was true. Finally, she said baldly, “I told the Sett Owl that I had been severed from the flow of earth magic. I asked if there was a way for the severing to be undone.” Then she repeated as exactly as she could all the words that the Sett Owl had said.
“A boon?” Crow croaked, shifting his plumage uneasily. “What boon?”
But Little Fur was gazing at Gem. She said, “Do you know where I can find the earth spirit, if that is what the Sett Owl meant by ‘the source’? Do you know how a stone can be full or empty, or why the Sett Owl spoke of a she-wizard?”
Crow gave a rude caw of disgust. “Stupidness! How can stone being full of anything but its own self? And what is Little Fur having to doing with wizards? Wizard-folk nevermore walking and casting in the worldliness.”
“Wizards were farsighted, it is said,” Gem murmured without meeting Little Fur’s gaze. “A wizard might see from one age to the next.”
“Perhaps the wizard who forced my parents to love one another was not evil,” Little Fur said softly.
“Perhaps a thing may look evil, though it is not,” Gem conceded. She fluffed her feathers and added, almost defiantly, “I must sleep now. I am weary from hunting.”
You are afraid, thought Little Fur. The words in her mind were sharp as a beak seeking a soft place to peck, but she did not speak them, for who would not fear to face the fate of the Sett Owl, if they were wise?
As if Little Fur had spoken aloud, Gem made a little whirring noise in her throat. Then she said forlornly, “If I go into the beaked house, I will grow, but I will never soar again.” Little Fur longed to gather the tiny owl up and tell her that she need not enter the beaked house and become the Sett Owl, that she might soar and hunt and be with her own kind. Except that Gem had never spent time with other owls. As a fallen nestling, she had been shunned, and the Sett Owl had told Little Fur that a fallen owl could never be as other owls. That Gem must fly up to what she might be.
Fly UP, thought Little Fur. “Perhaps there are many ways to soar,” she murmured. “Perhaps the Sett Owl soared where no other could fly, because of the still magic.” Then she reached out to stroke Gem’s soft wings, first one and then the other, adding gently, “But, Gem dear, in the end it is you who must decide what to do.”
“If I do not go into the beaked house, you will never feel the earth spirit again,” Gem said. “And I have seen that each day that you are severed from it, your elf blood will wither a little more until there is no elf blood left in you. But if I go into the beaked house, I have seen that I will send you into dreadful danger.”
Little Fur stared at her, aghast. “Did you see that just now when you looked at me?”
“I saw these things the last time I went inside the beaked house. I saw so much, and yet I could not see the end of anything. It made me fear what harm I might do.”
Little Fur said softly, “No matter what you see and what you tell me, Gem, in the end it is I who must decide what to do. You are not to blame for what I decide, or for what comes of my decision.”
There was a long silence. Little Fur could smell Gem’s fear and wondered if the owl was too young to have to make the choice. Perhaps, instead of growing when the still magic filled her up, she would crack like an egg. This thought was
so strong that Little Fur realized it was one of Gem’s fears.
Then something happened.
Little Fur felt a great silent cry shiver the air. Her hair crackled with the force of it, and the tips of her ears tingled. There was a great rustling commotion. All of the pigeons and owls and other birds that roosted in the walls of the beaked house rose up as one and began to weave a vast, complex net in the air above the beaked house. On the ground, Ginger, Gazrak, and the lemmings were gazing up at the birds.
“The Sett Owl has joined the world’s dream,” Crow said solemnly, and he rose up to join the net of birds.
“I did not say goodbye to her,” Little Fur said. Her eyes filled with hot tears, and she pressed her hand to the pain in her chest. She felt again the same ache that she had felt when the bright pulse of Lim’s life had been snuffed out. She understood then, as she had never been able to before, that this was why humans feared death: because for them, as for all creatures that held themselves separate from other creatures, death was the bitterest and most final of endings.
Little Fur gazed up for a long time at the hundreds and hundreds of birds wheeling in the sky overhead. Only when her neck grew sore did she look down and see that Gem had not moved. The tiny owl was still sitting atop the metal post. Her eyes were closed, but she was not sleeping. All of her plumage was fluffed out, and she was shivering so hard that her tiny beak rattled.
“What is it?” Little Fur asked anxiously.
“Afraid,” whispered Gem.
“Do not be afraid,” Little Fur said. “No one will make you go into the beaked house.”
“Not me,” Gem said, her eyes opening.
“The Sett Owl?” Little Fur asked confusedly. “You need not fear for her.”
“I do not fear for her,” Gem said. “She has joined the world’s dream.”
“Then what do you fear?”
“It is not me that fears. It is the still magic,” Gem said, and now her enormous eyes were fixed on the beaked house. “It … it loved the Sett Owl, and now she has gone away. It is afraid. … It is calling.”
Little Fur stared at her in astonishment. “I hear nothing.”
“That is because it is not calling you,” Gem whispered. She launched herself into the air on soundless wings and flew like an arrow to the small opening above the great doors that humans used to enter the beaked house. When she disappeared through it, Gazrak gave a squeal of dismay and raced across the grass to vanish through the tunnel at the base of the wall.
Little Fur sped after them, stunned that so much had happened so quickly. She crawled through the tunnel after Gazrak, but it was not until she reentered the beaked house that she felt the roaring confusion of the still magic. It was like a silent storm that battered against stone and cobbles and wood. Yet all was utterly quiet. There was no sign of Indyk, but Gem was perched atop the carved back of a throne such as elf kings and queens had sat upon in the last age. Light rained down on her through one of the colored windows. Her eyes were closed. Gazrak stood below her, gazing up and wringing his paws.
Little Fur did not dare to speak, but as she stood there, she felt that the wild churning of the still magic had begun to fall into a pattern. The pattern was coming from Gem, who was making a soft, rhythmic thrumming sound. The thrumming slowed and the pattern slowed until at last the still magic was still again. For a moment, Little Fur felt the same depthless peace she always felt when surrounded by a power so great, a power that simply existed without doing anything.
Then Gem’s eyes opened, and the golden flecks in them moved and shimmered like stars.
“I am sorry,” Little Fur said.
“No,” Gem said. It was her voice, but there was no longer fear in it, or wistfulness, and behind it shimmered all the power and mystery of the still magic. “You granted your boon to the one who was before me. You asked a question, but then you told me that I did not need to answer it. You made my fear be quiet so that I could hear the still magic calling me. Now you will have an answer.”
Little Fur’s heart bumped in her throat. “My answer?”
“To the question I did not answer,” Gem said calmly. “You asked where the earth spirit was to be found. This cannot be told, but there is one who can guide you, though that one is mad, and danger will travel with you as well.”
“Who will guide me?” Little Fur asked.
“He,” said Gem. Her eyes shifted to the tunnel opening. A gray-furred creature with startling tufts of fur at the tips of his ears was emerging from it. He was not much bigger than Ginger, and his movements were uncertain and timid. When he looked at her, Little Fur saw that he had eyes as red as wildfire, and when he straightened and turned to look around, she saw his long, beautiful tail, dramatically banded in black and white. It was the tail that reminded Little Fur that she had seen creatures like this one before in the human zoo! Lemuri, they called themselves.
She looked back to Gem and said doubtfully, “This lemur will guide me to the earth spirit?”
“None knows the way,” answered Gem. “The lemur will dream the way.”
The lemur crept closer to Gem, and Little Fur saw how madness burned in his eyes. “You are the one I dreamed: the Sett Owl,” he said. “But I could not find you.”
“I was not made until just now,” said Gem.
“Will you stop my dreams?” begged the lemur hoarsely.
“I cannot,” said Gem. “You must follow them until they cease. But you will not follow them alone. One already follows your dreams, and here is another who will go with you. Still others there are that will follow your dreams until they discover their own.”
The lemur shuddered violently from head to toe and then caught up his tail in his paws and began to gnaw the tip distractedly. Seeing this, Little Fur remembered the bedraggled lemur from the zoo. He had uttered gibberish while another of his clan had pronounced him mad. But the same lemur had also said that sometimes Ofred dreamed true.
“You are Ofred,” said Little Fur. “How did you get out of the zoo?”
“A cat freed me because she needed my hands to turn a key,” replied the lemur. Some of the things this small creature had said to he rat the zoo floated back into Little Fur’s mind. He had warned that she would lose her way and that she would be devoured by darkness if she did not find the deepest green.
The lemur gave a wild shriek of laughter, and the sound made the hair on Little Fur’s toes bristle. “Ofred remembers you,” the lemur said, his eyes blazing with accusation. “Little Fur, the elf troll whose face is in the flow of earth magic! In nightmare has Ofred seen you!”
“Nightmare?” Little Fur asked.
Ofred sang, in a sweet but mournful voice, “The way is deep and dark and doomed, and all who take it must be consumed!” The last word was a sob, and then the lemur shuddered. He lifted his tail around his shoulders before burying his small muzzle in it.
Little Fur looked helplessly at Gem, wondering how this tormented animal could lead her to the earth spirit. But Gem was looking at the tunnel opening again. The lemmings were entering, soft-footed and diffident. They came and laid down several soft white tulip bulbs before the small owl, and then, as one, they pressed themselves to the ground as a sign of deep respect.
“Greetings, Sett Owl,” said a lemming. “We bring an offering and ask if you can tell us the meaning of the nightmares of the Teta.”
“The nightmares come because the clan grows too big,” said Gem. “The clan must divide, and some must go far away. If it does not, madness will come and the clan will fail.”
“Will those who go find safe territory?” asked another lemming, showing no sign of alarm or fear.
“Those that would go must follow the dreams of Ofred,” said Gem, nodding at the lemur. “Those that dare to follow him to the end will find a strange but wondrous territory.”
The lemmings glanced uncertainly and uneasily at one another.
“Lemmings do not seek strangeness,” said a different lemming,
very respectfully.
The lemmings pressed themselves to the ground again and departed as quietly as they had entered. Gazrak hurried to gather up their offering, his eyes shining with greed.
Little Fur looked back at Gem, and again an angry impatience stirred in her. “It is all very well to follow Ofred’s dreams, but they seem not to tell us where we are to go or when.”
“The lemur will dream,” Gem said serenely. “Take care, Little Fur, for while you are cut off from the flow of earth magic, your elf blood weakens and your troll blood strengthens and grows unruly. Do not let it master you.”
Little Fur felt as if she had been drenched in icy water. “What will happen if it does?”
“You will never again feel the flow of earth magic, for trollkind has closed itself so utterly to the flow that no troll could ever rejoin it,” said the small owl who had been Gem and who was now wholly the Sett Owl of the beaked house.
“There is no safeness in having a mad lemur as guide,” Crow said later that night. “Madness equals stupidness and dangerousness.”
“I do not think there is any use in thinking of safety,” Little Fur said in a low voice.
Crow gave a low Craaak! and tried to look grave, but he was falling asleep.
Little Fur sighed and glanced at the enormous tree in whose branches the lemur now slept. Is he dreaming yet? she wondered uneasily. She went to sit on a stone step below a lesser door to the beaked house. The moon had set, and stars were beginning to wink out one by one. It would not be long before it was time for the sun to open its eye, and then the human guardians who tended the beaked house would arrive.
Little Fur stood and then sat again, restless. She had never felt this itching of the spirit so strongly before. She knew it must signal the strengthening of her troll blood. Gem’s warning that she must be careful had frightened her. Never had she thought of her troll blood as bad or dangerous, but it seemed this was only because it had been balanced by her elf blood. Yet if pure troll blood was dark and unruly, did that mean her mother had been bad? And if so, how had her father come to love her mother?