38
MOVING ON
Wizard Fenworth, Librettowit, Kale, Gymn, and Metta worked until dawn. Dar and Lee Ark regained their strength first, enough to set the campfires blazing again. They had to go into the woods to gather dry wood. Fenworth’s deluge had saturated the immediate vicinity. The frigid air turned the water on the ground to ice. Everyone wore wet clothing, and the warmth of the fires felt good.
Leetu and Brunstetter had suffered many wounds, but responded to repeated healings administered by Kale and her minor dragons. Wizard Fenworth and the tumanhofer gave aid to the large dragons. Then they helped heal the two-legged members of their questing party.
As the sun came up, the fine lace network of lighted vines overhead abruptly stopped growing and faded away. The people of the countryside walked over the nearby rolling hills to congregate around the camp. They offered to help in any way they could.
If Kale hadn’t been so tired in body and in spirit, she would have been amused at the sidelong glances they aimed toward Fenworth. Each woman bobbed a curtsy. The men nodded. Kale didn’t doubt they had turned out to help those who were victims of the blimmet attack. It was something the people of River Away would have done as well. But a wizard walking among them certainly stirred up curiosity.
The farmers and townspeople thanked Wizard Fenworth for slaying the blimmets, then set about digging a huge hole in the ground. When they finished, the local people layered the blimmet bodies and wood doused with deckit powder in the crater. No one touched the beasts but used shovels and picks to move them.
This done, the kimens invited Metta to go with them into the stand of woods to bury Glim. Kale watched with sadness as the little people marched in a dignified procession away from the crowd. They carried Glim’s remains in a shroud of golden light. As tradition demanded, those who waited sat in a mourning circle.
The local women went back to their homes, leaving the children to ask questions.
“Why did Pretender make the awful blimmets?” asked a young boy sitting in his father’s lap.
As the oldest member in the circle, Wizard Fenworth nodded to Librettowit, indicating that the tumanhofer should answer the question. The broad little man stood and went to the center. He would answer the children’s questions until he came upon one he could not or did not wish to answer. Stroking his beard, he looked the crowd of men and children over, cleared his throat, and began.
“For each of the high races of Wulder’s creation, Pretender tried to make his own race. The blimmets are Pretender’s failure to make a race like our friends, the doneels.”
“Did Pretender send the blimmets to kill us?”
“No.” Librettowit paced around the center of the circle and then faced the young man who had asked. “Pretender has no control over this evil creation of his. That is one of his failures, and I’m sure it goads his ego. However, blimmets charge blindly from one act of destruction to another, and that surely delights Pretender’s wicked heart.”
“Where did these blimmets come from?”
“From the ground. They burrow rapidly through the earth. Sometimes their movement can be seen from above as the ground bulges and sinks in a line above their tunnel. After they have eaten, they sleep for months, then wake up ravenous.”
“Will they come back?” The little girl’s chin trembled, and she held tightly to her father’s arm.
“This pack is dead.”
“Why did the water kill them?” The tall boy sat upright beside the other male members of his family.
“Blimmets do everything quickly, in small fierce movements. They breathe in gulps. They pulled water into their lungs before they knew what was happening. Also, they are not intelligent. Those who survived the first drencher would not have realized they only needed to hold their breaths in order to survive.”
“They’re pretty,” a little girl said around the thumb stuck securely in her mouth.
Librettowit looked at her kindly. “Yes, my dear little one, they are. Their fur is gloriously shiny for all their digging in the dirt. It is incredibly smooth and silky. It even has a pleasant odor, somewhat like baking nut pie, sweet and rich. However, if you take a blimmet pelt and make some garment to wear, it attracts other blimmets, and you meet a nasty end.”
Librettowit put his hands behind his back and glanced over to Fenworth. The old wizard nodded.
Librettowit sighed. “It is also said that the meat is tasty. Roasted blimmet is a savory culinary dish. I tell you this not to tempt you, but to warn you. Once you have eaten the blimmet meat, you will want more. I cannot imagine a more unhealthy occupation than hunting blimmet. Yet there are men who do so. Young men…they do not grow old.”
“Is that why we burn them?” asked another child.
“Yes, and we put in the deckit powder to make the fire burn hot.” His voice rose and for the first time sounded stern and impatient. “Deckit powder also leaves a bitter taste that would discourage any fool from the idiotic notion of sampling the meat just to see if the stories are true.”
“I have a question,” said Kale.
Librettowit nodded to her.
“Why did the blimmets only attack outside the circle we stood in?”
Librettowit’s shoulders eased back, his chest puffed out, and a pleased smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
“I did that.”
“Wit.” Fenworth said the name low and slow.
“Well, it’s true I couldn’t have done it without Fenworth right there feeding power into my spell, but you can’t live with a wizard and organize his library for centuries without learning at least a thing or two.”
Kale remembered hearing the tumanhofer grunting and panting during the attack. If Librettowit could cast a magic spell, could anyone? Provided that anyone was given the right training, of course. She didn’t think she should ask that question here, but one of the younger children must have been wondering the same thing.
“Was it hard?” a little voice piped up.
“Quite,” answered the librarian.
“Sir?”
Librettowit turned to a girl sitting snuggled up against a slightly older sister.
“Yes?”
“What was the pretty light we saw in the sky? It was after the screaming stopped. It wasn’t high enough to be the moon or the stars.”
Several voices spoke up, defying tradition of allowing the spokesman to answer any question. The phenomenal light caused more interest than the peculiarities of blimmets.
“Wizardry.”
“The wizard did it.”
“Wizard Fenworth made the light.”
Librettowit turned to face Fenworth.
“Aye,” said the old man. “Wizardry made the light, but it was not me.”
Kale stared at Librettowit. Had the tumanhofer performed such an astonishing spell?
No, he was just as bewildered as I was. And if Fenworth didn’t do it, who did? Librettowit and I were the only ones who were not hurt. No, that’s not true. Gymn and Metta. But Gymn had fainted. Metta?
The song of the returning mourners drifted from the woods. The people rose to their feet out of respect. From one direction came the five kimens and Metta. From the other arrived the women with the rejoicing feast. A few in the crowd hummed the song the kimens sang in strong, sure voices. Metta flew ahead of the walking procession and landed on Kale’s shoulder.
Dar pulled out his flute and joined the music. Kale heard several fiddles pick up the melody as the people responded to the unspoken call to worship. The o’rant girl recognized the praise song she had heard kimens singing in the cygnot forest after the mordakleep attack. Now she knew the words. Metta sang in her sweet, high voice, and Kale began to sing as well, knowing the little purple dragon gave her the words from a kimen’s memory.
In the past, Kale had participated in the custom of celebration when a citizen of River Away died. She understood that death meant a passage to another time and place. In River Away, the villagers thought the more boisterous the revelers, the more likely a dead person would enter a place of happiness.
It’s like Leetu said. Some things I knew were right are wrong. I’m changing so much on the inside. I keep learning things that seem to me I should have known all along.
It isn’t how much we dance and sing and enjoy the rejoicing feast that gets a dead person to a happy place. It has something to do with the person, not us. It has something to do with Glim’s life, not his death.
She walked around among the dancers until she had examined each of the kimens’ faces. Shimeran, Seezle, Zayvion, D’Shay, and Veazey all looked content. They sang with joy but not with absurd fervor. Kale relaxed. They truly celebrated Glim’s departure, assured he would reside in a happy place.
I don’t know how I know it, but I do. Not all these people understand. But the kimens do. And Dar and Leetu.
She looked among the dancers again, this time climbing onto a farmer’s wagon to get a better view.
She spotted the urohm and their marione leader quietly consuming a quail apiece.
Brunstetter and Lee Ark know what is right and what is wrong. Do the questers know more because they follow Paladin?
Fenworth’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “The questers are in the position to learn more, Kale. Because they follow Paladin. None of us knows it all. Only Wulder. Only Wulder.”
Kale whipped her head around until she caught sight of the wizard. He had a little girl on his knee and held a cup to her lips for her to drink. He winked at Kale.
“Another thing, o’rant girl, you must learn to control your use of light.”
Me?
“Yes, you!”