Forty-Nine

  So again Caiside, Freydis and I – for the second time in four nights – found ourselves sleeping outside the home of a friendly power. Azara, however, did not hand us near-buckets of firewater the way that Highview had.

  We made no fire, for fear of alarming Azara in her very flammable nest, but still enjoyed a peaceful evening. The twilight in the trees outside the bower seemed to linger longer than usual, somehow. We ate and spoke to each other enveloped by the dark blue-brown of the trees, the blue patches of sky above them, the bright blue of Azara’s decorative rocks, and the now-subdued green of the moss.

  “To be invited to sleep outside her home, and when she is apparently on the verge of laying an egg, no less,” Slade said. “You three are charmed travelers. Ghost-hunting; the spelepike; a rescue from a troll attack; you are good luck.”

  “About time you had some, if so,” I said. “May I ask you – do you feel like talking about your time in Wastemoor? And how you were imprisoned there?”

  “Well, I had better feel like it. Otherwise, I’ll have little to talk about. Can I trouble you for one of those seed loaves the firbolgs gave you?” I retrieved one from my bag.

  “So, my years in Wastemoor. Free at first, and then caged up. A good bit of my adult life.”

  “I assume," I said, "that it’s one of these personal things from the Mage which you – wound up with, which put you in that dungeon? Perhaps that crystal statue you told us about?”

  “Well, not exactly something personal. Initially at least. It wasn’t that statue. It was nuts.”

  “Nuts?”

  “Yes. Tree nuts. Cobnuts, specifically. Do you know them? Anyway, they were from a grove of trees that were on a reserve. She is very protective of the land she owns, and of these protected areas she maintains.”

  “And you got into trouble just for carrying out nuts?”

  “Well, no. Well, yes. I mean, I had some. But also – there were signs around that reserve. Stating that they were property of the Mage. And they were well-made.”

  “The signs?”

  “That’s right. Very nice, black varnished wood." He motioned with his hands, drawing a rectangle in the air, to indicate the size of one of the signs. "With the sea serpent logo on them. Same as the scarf. Good quality. I thought one might have some resale value, or be good for a trade. So, I took one.”

  “Something that small,” Freydis said, “that pedestrian, you would bother with?”

  Slade shrugged.

  “Well, if I’m not carrying much else, why not,” he said. “I was always looking for objects to trade, even if they might bring nothing more than a meal and a night’s lodging.”

  “But a warning sign from the Mage? That does not sound wise.”

  “You know, looking back, I would agree it was not.”

  “And it got you jailed?”

  He tilted his head and paused, weighing his answer.

  “Well, it was part of the reason. There is more to the story, though. I’ll share it with you later if you like.”

  “Wake, my friends! Wake up!”

  Azara’s musical voice roused us, in the morning. We rose on our elbows. Turning to the bower, I saw her standing in the entrance. She was radiant, even more so than the day before.

  “Come and see. What a wonderful day.”

  Inside the cane shelter, in bedding of a great pile of dried grass on the ground, we saw not one but two large eggs. Both were large, the size of melons. Large enough to hold a newborn baby, we could say. They were cream-colored, with small black spots.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  “Two of them!” Caiside said.

  “Yes,” Azara said. “You have brought me luck. I had felt there might be that second one, but I was not sure.”

  “So that is your mother?”

  “The one on the left, yes.”

  “And the second one?”

  “Another daughter. A new avivnost. We do have second ones now and again, of course. This is how our kind can grow.”

  “But she will not eventually have – you, will she? That would not be possible.”

  “Of course not, no. But she will start a new line. She will have a daughter eventually, and then someday her daughter will have her. And they will live near me, in these woods. And near to their grandmother.”

  “And the second one’s grandmother is also her sister,” Caiside said.

  “Indeed.” Azara extended a wing to brush a feather over them.

  “There is nothing so pleasant in life as sharing skills with the young,” she said. “I will teach them how to fly. And how to soar in circles, as you saw me doing up there. How to dive. How to care for our feathers. Where to glean grain.” She was quiet a moment, gazing at the eggs, and then added:

  “I remember the last time she learned to fly. She had been extending her wings, flapping them, rising perhaps her height into the air, no more. She was very young. She walked about the bower which I had then, trying over and over. She was disappointed that she was not able, and she gave up for the day. That night, she told me she would not even try, the next day.

  “But we woke, and fog had settled in. It was partway up all the trees, and above us was a solid blanket of white.

  “ ‘How far up does the fog go?’ she asked me.

  “I told her it might not rise very far at all. I said that I might be able to see the top of it.

  “And that moved her. She stood up on her talons, then, and flapped. Very hard. And she rose. Up into the trees. I followed her, of course. And just over the treetops, the fog ended, and we were able to fly looking down on it. With the blue sky and the risen sun above us.

  “What a day. To have one’s first flight on a day like that. There is nothing better in the world.”

  She then stepped over the eggs and lowered herself onto them.

  “That’s enough of a move and a stretch for me,” she said. “Do not let me delay you any further. I am glad you came to see my bower. It has been too long since anyone else saw it.”

  “We are so honored to have been allowed to stay here, and to see your eggs.”

  “Good luck on your journey. If it has to do with those alkonosts I’ve seen – and I believe it does – I hope you stay on their good side.”

  “Slade here has been on their good side already,” Caiside said. “That’s why they carried things for him. We are going to retrieve them.”

  In other circumstances we would have been appalled that she had blurted that out, but at that moment we felt safe. And indeed, Azara spoke and showed a remarkable lack of concern:

  “Retrieving things. I hope it is profitable for you. For my part, I will be occupied with the work of an avivnost.”

  I wondered how long she would need to stay there to brood the two eggs.

  “Can we – bring you anything to eat?” I asked. It seemed presumptuous to ask, for she must have been well-prepared, but it seemed awkward to just walk away.

  “Thank you, but I am ready,” she said. “I will not be very active for the next days. And I do have some food tucked away under all this grass.”

  “Let us leave you something from the firbolg we met, at least,” I said. “Our gift, for you and your children. The firbolgs gave us ample food. These dried berries, here they are.” I set them on the dried grass near her.

  We said a few more goodbyes and then stepped out. I was not quite sure of the etiquette of leaving your host politely when she is busy keeping her eggs warm in her nest.

  “To spend one’s life just caring for your young,” Slade said. We were walking back down the slope through the woods. “And over and over again. She didn’t seem to have much ambition to do anything else.”

  “It could be fulfilling,” Caiside said.

  “But it’s just a cycle,” I said. “Endless repetition. If that were me, I would have to wonder, at least sometimes, what exactly I was living for. You spend your life paving the way for your child, but then the next generation just does the same thing for the next. And there’s that odd twist with her, certainly, because that next generation after your child happens to be you yourself, but – shouldn’t there be more to life than that?”

  “Many people looking at us might have the same opinion about how we live our own lives,” Freydis said. “We raise sheep, we sell wool; the wool wears out eventually; and meanwhile we’re raising more sheep. Or, I suppose for you and your father: You play music at a wedding, and then after some time, children come along; eventually there is more music at another wedding. And very likely it’s many of the same songs, even if it’s different musicians playing it.”

  “You just have to enjoy the wedding and the music while it’s happening,” Slade said.

  .

  .