Part Two
Chapter 11
THE PROSELYTE
L eornian, the Giestranweard, the loremaster, was dead.
He had lived to see his hope for a conscientious, dedicated, and fully schooled successor to himself realized, though; and in fact had lived far longer than he himself ever thought he would, and died a contented death after a long long life. There had actually been something of a resurgence of interest in the old lore amongst young Traeppedelferes, in comparison with the time in Leornian's middle age when he seemed to be the only member of the race to carry the flame. He had privately confided to his annointed successor that he ascribed this renewed faith to the seeming incompetance of so many of the present Yldras, that the tribe was looking elsewhere for guidance. His successor was wise enough to keep this opinion in confidence, of course.
His chosen successor was Snecchen. She had exhibited a natural desire to delve into the early legends, to explain time-honored but mysterious and incomprehensible customs and rites in terms of their origins, and to understand nothing less than the future of the race as the logical extension of its past. She was tireless in her questioning of the master, and until she came to know him well would unwittingly exhaust him without mercy. He did not object, fearing that his life was near an end, and desiring to instruct this zealous pupil in everything he knew; but the other morwegiestranweards, envious of the attention received by Snecchen but unable to match her drive, pulled her aside one day and told her that she would be the death of Leornian herself if she did not moderate her intensity. Only then did she realize how completely absorbed she was in her studies.
Finally, one-hand-and-two seasons ago, he informed Snecchen that she would become Giestranweard, and he would announce it at the approaching Great Banquet, and she would read the lore then for the first of many times. She did not know how to react; she had of course guessed that she was his intended replacement, but she had been very content with the role of morwegiestranweard, and as Giestranweard would have other duties besides her overriding passion for study. When she told Leornian of her misgivings, he had only smiled and answered that there was nothing more for her to study, she had learned all that he could teach, and there was nothing for her to do any more as a morwegiestranweard. She responded with a burst of questions on many points of lore and legend as evidence that she had yet much to learn, but Leornian had only smiled once more, saying, "I not know answers, Snecchen. As Giestranweard, you may find knowledge hidden to me. As morwegiestranweard, you learn nothing." This argument was convincing, and Snecchen willingly accepted the appointment.
At the Great Banquet, at her first lore-reading, she spoke impressively, learnedly, passionately, but too long. The number of Traeppedelferes who were entranced and fascinated by her lesson was overwhelmed by the number who were bored to irritation. By the time she stepped down from the dais there was much agitated commotion from the restive crowd, and she was nearly in tears with humiliation. Leornian told her she did well, though, and that comforted her; and afterward many of those who had listened to her showed a desire to become morwegiestranweards, and that relieved her mind completely.
One of her first duties as Giestranweard was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life: to preside at the death-rite of Leornian. All of his goals had been achieved, and he chose the path that is the right of all of-age Traeppedelferes, to die of his own volition by water and fire. Snecchen was overcome with the justice, the dignity, and the tradition of the ceremony, and cried tears of joy for her master's life, not tears of sorrow for her loss, as she recited the verses over him. He took one bite only of the blowanslaep and smiled kindly at her alone before he closed his eyes at last, and she could only think at that moment how much she wanted to live the exact life he had lived, right to the end.
She immediately set out to interview all long-life Traeppedelferes. She was determined to accumulate their combined wisdom and experience in herself and her morwegiestranweards, and the old ones were almost all cooperative (some maddeningly so), and flattered by the attention. She soon found that there was little in the way of forgotten lore to be gleaned in this way, but much common sense and homely advice, and she resolved to pursue these interviews to the end.
All the time she had in the back of her mind the event which had directed her to Leornian in the first place: the cnawannawiht condemnation of Smaelaer. Smaelaer's words at that Great Banquet a generation ago haunted her, all that she had been able to hear about him later had not convinced her, and she really desired deep down to believe that he had seen a Waeccelang. The role Goffe had played in the oxagrete hunt, and his resulting motive for desiring Smaelaer's destruction, had eventually come to her knowledge, not that she could do anything about it. At any rate the preponderance of evidence of Smaelaer's other violations would have doomed him in the eyes of the Yldras even without Goffe's plot. But, as she talked with one old Traeppedelfere after another, she always listened with an ear to catching a new detail about the great oxagrete hunter.
Snecchen saved her talk with the Wrencanmodor for last. Not only was Haegtesse a storehouse of custom and ritual in her own right, but the only reliable source of information on births and deaths. She also had to be the one of the very oldest members of the tribe. At least, these were the reasons Snecchen gave herself for waiting to interview Haegtesse. The truth of the matter was that, like everyone else, Snecchen was terrified of the old antunge, and dreaded confronting her.
When they finally met, it was nothing like what Snecchen had expected. Haegtesse answered all her questions with what passed with her for courtesy. But the shrewd old Wrencanmodor soon had turned the conversation around into an inquiry into the Giestranweard's duties and beliefs, and before Snecchen knew what had happened Haegtesse had heard enough to know all about her passion for knowledge, her respect for lore, and her interest in Smaelaer. This last was a subject which at one time had interested Haegtesse, too, and she immediately picked up on it, and even made an unsolicited suggestion to her about a way she might investigate further into it.
When it was over Snecchen had heard enough to keep her thinking for a good long while, and she cautiously asked Haegtesse if she might speak with her again some day, for it was apparent to her that Haegtesse was well worth listening to. Haegtesse grunted rather noncommitally in answer to this request, but the interview had entertained her, and she herself had been stimulated to thought by it, which didn't happen often to her anymore.
Snecchen and Haegtesse met several times after that first tete-a-tete, and discovered a common interest in legends that bridged the gap in their ages to allow an unlooked-for meeting of the minds. Of the two, Snecchen was the undisputed master of traditional lore, but Haegtesse proved to be a veritable treasure-trove of conjectures and hypotheses based on a long life of study of the Traeppedelferes themselves. Certain customs, the origins of which Snecchen had unsuccessfully tried to determine, were explained by Haegtesse in plausible, if unverifiable, theories well grounded in observed behavior and rites. On the other hand, Haegtesse was keenly interested in hearing the Giestranweard's learned dissertations on a few things she had puzzled over for some time. Gradually, a mutual respect grew between them, in spite of the revulsion Haegtesse inspired in Snecchen physically, and in spite of the surprising, considering her position, contempt Haegtesse held for everyone in general.
Monwyrt slept the rest of that day, and all the next. The kinks in his body from the long march with his pathetic load were ironed out on the cot, which replaced them with kinks of its own making. When Monwyrt awoke at last he was stiff to the point of petrification. It was late, there was no sound above the muffled rumble of the mines, and he stretched his limbs slowly, sitting on the edge of his cot.
He hated waking up inside. He hated the complete darkness; he hated the dead, stale air; he hated the unnatural quiet. He had instinctively looked for the position of the stars and tasted the air for game as he awoke, only to be thwarted by the surrounding stone. And when he stood to stretch out full-length, he had rammed his fingers into the ceiling of his little chamber. To make his misery complete, he suddenly realized that he was painfully hungry.
He was not very familiar with the caves, but he had been to the great hall once before as a morwetraeppe on an errand from Galan, so of course he knew where it was forever. He thought he remembered hearing that there was a storeroom there somewhere, and his hunger was more than enough motivation to instigate an expedition. He left his den noiselessly.
"I tell you, you, you little moc - hic! - you mocsaec!" Smerian was endeavoring to describe the famous oxagretes of the Great Oxagrete Feast to two young colleagues. "Look! Look! Oooh, um, look here!" He unsteadily climbed up and stood on the small round table they were using in the great hall. He leaned backwards perilously far, whirling his arms to regain his balance and, succeeding, stretched one hand as high as he could reach over his head, standing on his toes. "Horns here! Look! Horns this high!" he said triumphantly.
"Bah! Get down, old gos!" Stanbraegen said in a disgusted tone of voice. "You kick cups, I kick you!"
"No, no, no," Geoluscite argued, ignoring Stanbraegen's sullen grousing. "I am hunter, I know oxagrete no higher than this, ever!" He lifted his hand to a point just above his head, perhaps half the distance from the floor that Smerian's hand was.
"Oh, you hunter?" Stanbraegen suddenly turned on Geoluscite.
"Will soon be hunter," Geoluscite reluctantly admitted, adding with some bitterness, "I have been morwetraeppe long enough." Both Smerian and Stanbraegen laughed mockingly.
"Oh - hic! - Oho!" Smerian interjected. "You, you have seen oxagretes yourself?"
"I, well, um! Well, all right! All right! No, I not!" Geoluscite was angry and defensive, and he stood up and began shouting at Smerian. "But I know oxagretes not that high! I tired of all your old tales, how big this was, how great that was, faugh! You just old flotasaec saelig twatunge! Get down and I beat you like thriddahype! Get down!"
This challenge opened Stanbraegen's drooping eyes. He was a morwemaciantol under Smerian, and he knew how strong Smerian was, even when he was saelig. The prospect of seeing the obnoxious Geoluscite squashed like a sphex was promising, and he looked to Smerian to see his reaction.
Smerian climbed down from the table with care, and walked around it slowly until he nearly touched noses with Geoluscite. Then he just stood there, wavering a little but calm, as if he were minutely inspecting Geoluscite's face. Geoluscite hesitated, not knowing what Smerian thought he was doing, and not willing to back up. His eyes nervously twitched, he clenched and unclenched his fists, he braced himself for - something. Smerian stared him down, waiting.
Just as Geoluscite was about to ask Stanbraegen what the matter was with the old bealcian, Smerian shouted suddenly in Geoluscite's face, "Bah!" Geoluscite sprang back away from the maciantol with an involuntary terrified jerk, tripping over the bench behind him and landing on the floor in a painful and undignified position. His every fiber had been screwed up to a twanging tension during Smerian's menacing silence, and the unexpected shattering of that silence had triggered an impressive convulsion which threw him the length of his body backwards. Stanbraegen misinterpreted Geoluscite's movement as a retreat and found his position to be quite comical, to Geoluscite's extreme mortification. He picked himself up off of the floor.
"Just what I might expect, some trick!" he sneered at Smerian, who seemed not to hear, and was sitting down again. "I not listen to you any more, you twatunge, you, you - " he struggled to come up with the basest and most cutting insult he could, but got so flustered that he blurted out the only thing that came to mind - "you maciantol!" He turned and left in a cloud of indignation.
"Mocsaec," Smerian drily commented to Stanbraegen on his departure, "you hear what he call us? Maciantol! That hurt, um?! Oh, oh, oh, oh!" Stanbraegen smiled. Whatever else Smerian was, he was certainly a droll companion, particularly if there was wine to be had.
The two of them sat a while longer, drinking more blowanslaep cider, until Stanbraegen announced pointedly that "he not drop another drink," and stared stupidly at Smerian for a moment with gelled eyes while he tried to figure out why his statement didn't sound quite right. He said it again, "not drop another drink," and suddenly erupted in hysterical, almost maniacal, laughter, which doubled him over and robbed him of air, until he was gasping desperately and nearly sick. Smerian sat unmoved by all this, which in itself seemed preposterously funny to Stanbraegen, and he was mercilessly attacked by a second wave of paroxysms.
"You drink enough," Smerian observed. "Go, sleep. Much work to do next day. Go."
"Even if Smerian saelig," Stanbraegen thought to himself, "I had better humor him; he is maciantol, I am morwemaciantol." Even this thought struck him as provocatively humorous, and he laughed a third time as he said good-night and staggered out of the hall.
"Moc - hic! - saec," Smerian said to himself, and refilled his cup.
The Great Hall was now completely silent (to Smerian) and still. The only source of light was a fyrstan guidelight burning low beside the nearest entrance. The maciantol began to get uneasy for some reason; he couldn't put his finger on it; what had he been thinking? Oh, um, they were arguing about the oxagretes. What a flotasaec that Geoluscite was!
He wished he had stayed out on the slopes when Smaelaer had brought the beasts up to the entrance that day, then perhaps he would be sure now of just how high they really were. He remembered seeing Smaelaer beside them in the distance, and Smaelaer was so high himself... he strained to recreate the proportions in his mind. He had sat drinking with Smaelaer in this very hall more than once, he recalled - he had never seemed cnawannawiht - but the Yldras must know such things - moc! his cup was empty again.
He stood to go back into the storeroom to refill his cup with a sort of backward, lurching movement - which seemed most natural and controled to him at the time - when his eyes smeared past what seemed to be a figure standing right in front of him. "Hmgh!" he growled, shaking the blurriness out of his head, or trying to. No, it was still there; and he measured the apparition's height from the floor up with a deliberate vertical panning of his head, eyes rigidly mounted in their sockets as if fastened with spikes. When Smerian had stared at the face long enough for his eyes to have focused on it, suddenly his own face turned white as white, and his eyes broke loose from their moorings and rolled straight up so that nothing showed but yellow. He dropped like a rock in a dead feint.
Monwyrt had only intended to ask this lone twatunge where the storerooms were, and of course was completely baffled by Smerian's amazing reaction. He shook the maciantol's thick shoulders a couple of times in an effort to revive him; but it soon became obvious that he was deep in a saelig stupor and that he, Monwyrt, would have to fend for himself. He investigated doors and alcoves until he found the one he was looking for and soon, with the help of his nose and tongue, had found himself a meal of dried thriddahype, stale coecil, and cider.
A pale light was beginning to penetrate the long vent-shafts to the hall when Smerian roused himself some time later. He was alone. He looked around with apprehension, but there was nothing to be seen. "No," he shook his head decisively. "Can not be." He picked up his cup with an uncertain look on his face, however: and in a sudden uncharacteristic burst of temper he threw it clattering into the furthest corner of the hall.
Monwyrt sat brooding on the outside of the mountain, near the entrance to the mines. He had unsuccessfully tried to go back to sleep after finishing his meal, but soon gave that up as hopeless, and wandered out onto the slopes. The cool morning air revived him and the chaotic dawn song-fest calmed him, and he decided to sit down and await the sunrise. Listen. Breathe. He was so soothed by his escape from his claustrophobic chamber that he nearly dozed off several times, always catching himself with a jolt and recollecting that he wasn't really sleepy.
At last something caught his attention and brought him fully conscious: a twatunge with a pronounced limp was approaching the entrance from the direction of the hunters' and morwetraeppes' cabins.
Galan was in a hurry, and his mind was preoccupied, or he would surely have seen Monwyrt lying there. He would be missed at the morning exercises of the morwetraeppes, but it could not be helped. He felt he must talk to Monwyrt before he up and left the caves again, before something else (he wasn't sure exactly what) happened. He was debating whether he should just enter Monwyrt's den without knocking, so as not to be heard by anyone, or knock as if it were an ordinary visit, so as not to arouse the suspicion of any possible eavesdroppers. Then again, he wondered if there was any need for privacy at all; perhaps Monwyrt already knew everything he wanted to tell him - but how could he? he had been asleep for a day and a half - but maybe he hadn't really been asleep, and they were only giving out that he was asleep!
Why was he so worried? he asked himself; Monwyrt was of age, he, Galan, was no longer answerable for him - but what if something terrible could be avoided only if Monwyrt hears Galan's news? Then a chilling thought came to him: what if some Yldra's plans are ruined and he is held responsible for it? He stopped suddenly on the path and weighed this possibility in his mind for a few moments.
Galan reached a decision: his loyalty to his former student won out over his fealty to the Yldras; besides, he did not know for certain that any Yldras were involved, while Monwyrt was obviously in the middle of it. He took two steps, and stopped again. In the middle of what? Involved in what? What, exactly, was he going to say to Monwyrt, anyway? Well, one thing at least was clear to him: something was going on, and, whatever it was, it involved Monwyrt somehow, and he had been edgy with impatience this last day waiting for Monwyrt to wake up (if he had really been asleep!), so he had better talk to him soon or he would never get anything done.
Galan was such a novice at intrigue that he was strung tight as a trip-rope already, and it was barely dawn. He took a deep breath, and began limping again toward the entrance.
He had taken but two steps when Monwyrt called him by that old jeering taunt to Ceappraett: "GA-LAN!" Galan, much to Monwyrt's delight, jumped as if he had been kicked, and flushed to the hairtips with agonizing embarassment; he had not seen Monwyrt, he had not tasted or smelled or heard Monwyrt, and any self-respecting Traeppedelferean hunter would rather die than admit to being surprised like that. Monwyrt immediately empathized and apologized, but the shock had done nothing to ease Galan's agitation, and he stared at Monwyrt as if he were an oxagrete.
"Why everyone look at me that way?" Monwyrt asked.
"What?" Galan couldn't understand the question, and was just recovering from the surprise, cooling his embarassment, and getting over his astonishment at the target of his search being out there to meet him, all at once. "Monwyrt? Monwyrt! Monwyrt, I come to talk to you! I say two days past we must talk."
"Um, I remember."
"Why you outside caves?"
"Not sleep, hate chamber."
"Not sleep?" Galan misunderstood him. "Twatunge antunge say you sleep all day! Say you sleep all night before!"
"Um, um!" Monwyrt hastily reassured his strangely animated former master. "I wake in night, not sleep after."
"Monwyrt," Galan blurted with urgency, forgetting the question of whether Monwyrt had been asleep or not, "Monwyrt, I must talk to you! Something is going on!"
Monwyrt was almost amused by Galan's breathless anxiety. He had never seen Galan this way. Galan went on.
"Many hand-days past someone come to me." He lowered his voice and looked around mysteriously (comically, Monwyrt thought). "The Giestranweard! The Giestranweard come to morwetraeppe's cabin to ask about hunter. 'Is there hunter or morwetraeppe who run long, never drygeslaep?' she ask me. I think of you at once, but say nothing. 'Why you want hunter?' I ask her. 'Only to talk,' she say. I tell about you, I see no harm. She go back to caves, you out in forest, I forget it all.
"Great Banquet come, all Traeppedelferes excited, but you not here for coming-of-age. Then, two days after" - he lowered his voice still further, until it was almost drowned out by the morning chorus of the forest - "two days after, the Wrencanmodor, Haegtesse" - he hissed the name emphatically - "call for me. She ask about you, Monwyrt; she say, 'Monwyrt the hunter come of age, but not at feast.' She look for you, Monwyrt, at feast! 'Monwyrt dead?' I tell her no, no, not think so, and say Hunigceace sent after you, but too late. She look at me with eye - Ugh! I almost sick! but she say no more, and wave me off with her stick.
"Then, later same day, same day! Giestranweard come to morwetraeppes' cabin again, ask about hunter I say run far, I say not back, but will come, I know not how soon. I not understand, three days I think about words until you come; then I so gemaed over Hunigceace I almost forget, but you too weak to talk, I wait until now. What is going on? Do you know?"
The rich booming voice that was Galan's trademark was not to be recognized; he ended his communication in a plaintive whine.
Monwyrt tried to make some sense of it. His expression was serious, now. Although he did not share Galan's agitation, he appreciated his concern. "No," he said in answer. "I not understand. I not talk to anyone else." He thought for a moment. "You say to Fearthabraegen?"
Galan comprehended the intent behind Monwyrt's question. Fearthabraegen was now an Yldra over the hunters. "No. I think of Yldras also. No Yldras talk to me about you."
Monwyrt was relieved, but he realised that this did not necessarily mean that the Yldras were not thinking of him. He had no reason to mistrust Galan, but the thought occured to him then that Galan was acting strangely... What was all this about?
They didn't have any more time to worry about it. A young antunge, a morwemodor, it turned out, appeared at the mouth of the entrance to the mines and, hearing their voices, called out to them, blinking, "You hunters know Monwyrt?" Monwyrt and Galan looked each other in the eye.
"Monwyrt," Monwyrt introduced himself. "What want?"
"I want nothing," the wencel replied, "but Wrencanmodor send for you."
"What want?" Monwyrt repeated.
"Not know. You come?"
Monwyrt shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "why not?" and motioned to Galan to join him. "Come. We learn together."
Galan shuddered. "No, you go. Say to me after," and then, as an afterthought, "not want to anger Wrencanmodor. She not call me."
Monwyrt nodded in complete understanding, and followed the morwemodor into the caves.
The Wrencanmodor's door was open. The morwemodor pointed it out to Monwyrt from down the corridor and turned to leave, but Haegtesse heard them coming and barked out, "Wencel! Come!" The poor antunge's shoulders drooped as she turned, took a deep breath, and followed Monwyrt into the den.
"You Monwyrt?" Haegtesse sharply asked without looking up, then lifted her eyes before he had a chance to answer and said, "Ah! Oh, oh, um, you Monwyrt, um," with an unsettling look in her eye and a sinister little smile on her leathery lips. Her expression changed to a no-nonsense icy stare when the morwemodor entered, and she snapped out a long list of instructions to the wencel, who listened in terror like some unwilling martyr. When Haegtesse had done with her and waved her off with her stick she fled down the corridor in a kind of ecstatic panic, and the Wrencanmodor shook her head in disgust. "She not last one season," she confidently predicted to Monwyrt, cracking that smile again as she settled back to consider him.
"Monwyrt," she addressed him after a pause, "you hunter, um? You run long, very long - you say there is no drygeslaep, um?"
"I hunter, um, and run long. I not feel drygeslaep, but know now some do." Monwyrt tried to choose his words carefully.
"All do! All!" Haegtesse asserted. "All but Monwyrt." She changed the subject. "Past days, you hunt near mines, kill many, many thriddahypes, um?"
"Um."
"Not kill so many now, um?"
Monwyrt wondered what she was driving at, but couldn't avoid the direct question. "Um."
She looked at him suspiciously. "Why not?"
Monwyrt had not expected this question to come from her. On his every return to the caves he had expected it from some one or other of the hunters' Yldras, but they had all appeared content just to let him wander as long as he stayed out of the way of the other hunters, and that suited him just fine. But Haegtesse had no interest in the hunters' quotas or paths, or shouldn't have, as far as he could tell, and it was his turn to look at her with suspicion as he wondered why she was asking these questions.
She seemed to anticipate his mistrust. "Not worry, I not say to flotasaec Yldras."
"Why you ask?" Monwyrt wanted to know.
Haegtesse's crooked smile broadened. "Forget question," she waved her stick, "not important." But Monwyrt felt that she was not forgetting his reaction to that question, and he became uneasy.
She went on. "You see oxagretes?"
"Um, many times in forest."
"You kill oxagretes?"
Without thinking Monwyrt laughed at the naivety of the question. "I keep far, far away, like all hunters."
"Oxagretes taste you?"
"Um, but I move upwind, they forget soon." Monwyrt had all but lost his reluctance to talk; Haegtesse's questioning had suddenly become ignorant and trivial.
But Haegtesse knew what she was about, and had as good a knowledge of oxagretes as was possible for one who was not a hunter. "They taste you many times?"
"Um, many times."
"Always forget?"
Monwyrt turned his palms up as if to say, "I am here, aren't I?" Instead, he answered more respectfully, "Always."
"You want oxagrete to forget?"
What a ridiculous question! "Um, um, all hunters hide from oxagretes, all hunters hope oxagrete forget them and go away! Why you ask?"
"All hunters want oxagrete go away, um," she admitted, and came to her point, "but oxagretes not always go away! Each season more hunters eaten by oxagretes, all want them go away, also. But you run far, run long, see many, many oxagretes, many oxagretes taste you," she leaned forward and looked him in the eye, "but always, always! forget you and turn away! Why? Why?"
Monwyrt couldn't understand the reason for her sudden vehemence. "Why? Who can say? I not think of it before, they just go away, I happy. Why you ask?"
Haegtesse looked at him thoughtfully. "He not think of it before," she said to herself, "he really not know why I ask!" Aloud, she asked, "You know old hunter called Smaelaer?"
Of course all the hunters and morwetraeppes were familiar with that name. Smaelaer was a legend among them, the one and only oxagrete killer, and his story had been told and embellished and exaggerated for many seasons, ever since the famous Great Oxagrete Feast. The question threw Monwyrt on his guard again, though; he didn't see the connection, and he answered cautiously.
"I know name, I know tales," he said. "I not know hunter, Smaelaer dead long."
"You know tales, you say," she continued, "think: how Smaelaer bring oxagretes to caves? Tales say Smaelaer talk to oxagretes, they obey. Can not be, but oxagretes obey anyway. What you say?"
"I not believe tales," Monwyrt stated flatly. "Smaelaer find cnawannawiht oxagretes to follow him, somehow. No one talk to oxagretes."
Haegtesse raised her eyebrows. "Cnawannawiht oxagretes!" she said in surprise. "Quiet, gentle, cnawannawiht - let Smaelaer kill without sound? You see many, many oxagretes, you say; how many cnawannawiht this way?"
Monwyrt frowned. "None."
"But Smaelaer find three! Three! What you say?"
"That why Smaelaer hailed as great among hunters."
"Bah!" barked Haegtesse. "You know, hunters know, I know there no such cnawannawiht oxagretes. Smaelaer talk to them somehow."
"How?" asked Monwyrt, becoming irritated. "How talk to oxagretes?"
"I hope you tell!" Haegtesse returned softly, deliberately.
"Me?!" Monwyrt exclaimed. "How me? Why me?"
"Why you? Why Smaelaer? But Smaelaer talk to beast, and if Smaelaer talk to beast, why not Monwyrt?" Haegtesse was getting excited, and her voice was raised; but she was not angry.
"Why not Monwyrt?" He thought she had lost her senses. "I not Smaelaer, I not Smaelaer, I Monwyrt! You say Smaelaer talk to beasts, maybe - can not be, but no other way I can see - but that Smaelaer, not Monwyrt! What do I have to do with Smaelaer?"
She looked up at him from beneath her eyebrows, with a strange sort of gaze that froze Monwyrt to the core, and holding him in her eyes all the while spoke to him in a voice which was no longer curious, but commanding.
"Monwyrt, I not enemy, I not Yldra." He was startled at hearing the correlation, but agreed with it. She went on. "Do not speak of this to anyone. No one but one only, and Haegtesse."
Monwyrt was tired of this vaguery. "What this about? Say now! Now! 'No one but one only,' what that mean? Is 'one only' Galan? I say to him when I go. Say to me now, what this about?"
"Galan!" She recognised the name, but had forgotten about him until then. "No, Galan not other. I not know if you can say to Galan, I not say. The other is Giestranweard, ask her about Galan. Giestranweard say all to you, I send you to her now, she will say all, I say no more but this: say to no one we talk, say to no one what we say here! Yldras hear, Yldras not understand."
"I not understand!" cried Monwyrt. "What can I say?"
"You will know soon," said Haegtesse, waving her stick in dismissal. "Go to Giestranweard, she will say. Go!"
Monwyrt turned to go, looking at her once more in perplexity. She made a crooked half-smile to herself or to him, he could not decide which, and waved him out. He turned his back to her and left.
"If Smaelaer talk to beast, why not Monwyrt?" she said to herself. "Um, and if Smaelaer see Waeccelang..."
Monwyrt was annoyed, anxious, curious, and a little frightened. He thought of the look Haegtesse had just given him. Why did they all look at him that way? What was going on? The Yldras were not to know, no one was to know... well, that was no problem, he didn't know himself. He began to understand Galan's agitation. This whole situation was maddening. No wonder he hated to come back to the caves! But he was the only one he knew who hated to come back to the caves - why was he the only one?
Did Haegtesse really believe Smaelaer talked to oxagretes? Then he remembered her questions about his own experiences with the brutes, and it dawned on him: could she think that he, Monwyrt, could talk to the oxagretes? He immediately dismissed the idea out of hand. What could they want, the Wrencanmodor and the Giestranweard, and why him? Galan said the Wrencanmodor had looked for him in particular at the Great Banquet - as if she had nothing else to do, with a mob clamoring for her attention! - but that's just it; if she really was looking for him, it must have been important! But then she told him nothing at all just now, "the Giestranweard will say all!" - why not the Wrencanmodor? The Giestranweard came to speak to Galan twice. What did they want?
These questions revolved unresolved in his mind as he strode through the tunnels - where? He suddenly realised that he did not know where the Giestranweard's chambers were. He stopped a twatunge in the corridor to ask the way and was heartened; he did not give him any kind of strange or mysterious look at all, and was only most naturally irritated at being interrupted to give directions (indeed! a lost hunter!). Monwyrt appreciated his gruffness more than the directions, and assuredly impressed the twatunge as some kind of gemaed mocsaec.
Snecchen was expecting him. The morwemodor had come straight to her from the Wrencanmodor with the intelligence that Monwyrt would be sent to her soon. She had dismissed her morwegiestranweards and was alone, waiting.
Monwyrt entered shyly. He had never seen the Giestranweard, and wasn't even sure he was in the right chamber. When Snecchen saw him approach her door, she smiled and motioned in token of greeting, and he came in quietly, head bent respectfully. "Monwyrt?" she asked in her rich, calming voice.
At the sound of her voice, Monwyrt looked up and was amazed at what he saw. He had expected some horrid mass of ancient repulsion similar to Haegtesse. Snecchen, while no longer in the bloom of youth, was still a handsome antunge, and appeared handsomer yet against Monwyrt's expectations, and he immediately thawed, and then froze again for a different reason.
Snecchen was giving him that same unnatural look.
If the Giestranweard's unexpected attractiveness had been a shock to Monwyrt, it was nothing compared to the shock Snecchen felt on seeing Monwyrt's face clearly for the first time as he looked up. She shuddered as icy fingers ran down her spine, and she knew that Haegtesse had been right after all.
"Smaelaer!" she whispered involuntarily, in a kind of trance.
"Monwyrt." Monwyrt did not hear her whisper; he had introduced himself at exactly the moment she had uttered it.
"Um, Monwyrt!" she said, finding herself.
"Giestranweard," he began, "I must hear: what you want with me? What Haegtesse want with me? She not say. Say to me!"
Snecchen looked long at him. Instead of answering his question directly, she bade him sit with her on the bench, exactly as she had sat with Leornian on her first visit to the Giestranweard. Monwyrt sat down, and she looked him in the eyes, and began.
"Monwyrt, what you want most; to hunt, or just to be in forest?"
Monyrt answered automatically as any hunter would, "to hunt!"
"You run far, run long, but only bring in quota and no more. Many hunters say this to me. When you hunt near mines, you kill all thriddahypes, many times quota, with other hunters in same forest, but you move to new forest, with all thriddahypes to you alone, and only kill quota! What you say?"
Monwyrt was silent. There was that question again. What did he do all that time out in the forest? Haegtesse had started with the same question. He was forced to confront it this time, and he struggled to discover the answer; he didn't know it himself up to this moment, and that surprised him, too - he thought he had been prepared for the Yldras' asking it. But Snecchen had approached it from a different side, what did he want most? and as he thought it became clear to him for the first time that the hunt had become merely an excuse to get him out into the forest. Suddenly his whole life was turned upside down, for the first time in his life his future was unclear.
Snecchen did not need to hear an answer. She could tell by looking at him. He sat slumped on the bench, looking down at the floor.
"Monwyrt, if you could walk in forest and not have to hunt, not have to report to Yldra, not have to carry traps, what you say?"
"Why you ask? No one walk in forest except to hunt, and all hunters report to Yldras and carry traps."
"Answer question. You want walk in forest only?"
He thought it would be the perfect life. If only it were possible! "Um, um! I walk long, far, but always must return to bring kills to drop-off. If no kills, I walk very, very far. Um."
Snecchen smiled. "Good! You can, you know. I can help!"
He turned and faced her with sudden enthusiasm. "How? How this come to be?"
She looked into his shining eyes. "Become morwegiestranweard!" she entreated him. "Study with me, teach me; and report to me, and not to Yldra! Be morwegiestranweard!"
Monwyrt was taken aback. Morwegiestranweard? He couldn't even say it! He had no interest in lore, he hated instruction, he hated the caves - was she saelig? He couldn't figure this out, either. "What?! Why? Do morwegiestranweards walk in forest? Why do I want to report to you, and not Yldra? Master is master! Is this what all this is about, to make me pupil? Haegtesse, also? And why me?" He stood up and paced nervously back and forth, and repeated that question for the last time, "Why me?"
Snecchen had him sit and compose himself, and then she said, "You have rare talents, Monwyrt, that I have learned. I have some sway in tribe. I can let you walk far, far as you like, if you break from hunters and come to me. Very easy, just say word.
"But I, Giestranweard, not know all. More I learn, more questions I make. Some important questions, Monwyrt, Haegtesse want answers, and I, also. We think you, with your talents, may help us find some answers, Monwyrt. I say again, important answers, not known by Traeppedelferes before. That why I want you become morwegiestranweard. I think you like, I vow if you not like, you become hunter again. What you say?"
"What talents? I still not understand," Monwyrt cried.
"No, you not know talents yet, we not sure yet, but we think. We remember one you do not; and know things you do not. What you say?"
"If I become pupil, what I do then? I not like lore."
"You go out of mines, walk far, learn about mountain and forest. You not be pupil. You be like me: I learn from Traeppedelferes, you learn from... forest."
Monwyrt was attracted by this proposal, though he didn't see what use he would be to her in this capacity. And, he couldn't understand the heavy shroud of secrecy and mystery with which they had cloaked this offer. "If I not like, I go back to hunters?" he asked.
Snecchen beamed. "Um, um, anytime!"
Monwyrt sighed. "Not know. I hunter long, I prepare long before I hunter. Say to me why I say to no one, why all these questions, I think about it. Say!"
"Ah," said Snecchen, "that fair, that fair. Monwyrt, I want you to walk far to learn something." She suddenly feared that he would not go through with it. "Say to no one!" she said urgently. "Swear! Swear you say to no one!"
"Not Galan?"
"No!" she shot back. "No one! Do you swear?"
"I swear to Waeccelang, then," Monwyrt blurted with vexation. "That enough?"
Snecchen recalled a time when she had sworn to the Waeccelang an oath of secrecy, and shuddered in spite of all her learning since that time. "Um," she said, "that enough."
"Waeccelang, I say to no one what Giestranweard say to me!" Monwyrt promised. "Now, what?"
"When you become morwegiestranweard I send you out," said Snecchen, smiling at the irony of his oath, "to look... in Haunted Lands."
The Haunted Lands! Monwyrt could think of nothing else as he left the Giestranweard's chambers, and wandered the corridors of the mines for the rest of the day.
Later, Snecchen was telling Haegtesse about the encounter.
"Will he become morwegiestranweard?" Haegtesse demanded to know.
"Not say, but um, I think so," Snecchen said thoughtfully. "He want walk far, not hunt. He much like Smaelaer, not long for mines, not trust Yldras."
"Hmgh! Not trust us!" Haegtesse grunted. "Can we trust him? Why you tell him about Haunted Lands? You talk of Waeccelang also?"
"No, no, just Haunted Lands. I had to, it make him think. Only way for him to see Haunted Lands is to become morwegiestranweard."
Haegtesse was silent a moment. "You know, I know Smaelaer not cnawannawiht. We think he see Waeccelang when no one else saw. No one! We must be careful. Monwyrt may be right - he not Smaelaer. Do not say much to him, Snecchen."
"Monwyrt swear on Waeccelang he not say!"
"Faugh! I swear on Waeccelang I am cild! So?" Haegtesse spat venomously, then paused in thought. The Waeccelang oath was no longer an empty promise. "No, I not mean that. Monwyrt swear on Waeccelang? I trust him, then."
"Monwyrt only a cild when Great Oxagrete Feast happen, or he might see Waeccelang there also."
"Um, or might not."
Snecchen rose to leave. "We find out when Monwyrt decides to become morwegiestranweard. May learn many things!"
Haegtesse's mouth curled in a cynical smile. "Maybe too much," she croaked, "or nothing."
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