Why couldn't she be here for this?

Iris had still not returned to her burrow when Seileah investigated the Seer's cold home. I so need her help. One last try and she isn't here. Rubles purr of loving attention provided much lose spring hair and much welcome adoring, which slightly made up for Iris's absence—just the tiniest bit. And, after a night with a contented cat tail curled round her arm and pressed to her stomach on the earth bench, inside where the light now streamed through, Seileah was ready to continue her journey onto new lands and away from the Morook. "You see her soon, I am only too sure, little friend. This wasn't my luck."

It was mid afternoon by the time Seileah again had reached the riverbank spot where she'd first found the strange human appear. No sign of him now. She drank from clean waters and rested.

She had observed no coyote tracks on her way here and assumed the solitary pack animal she'd seen here before must live further beyond, deeper inside the less treacherous hillside expanse. So far, it had only revealed itself to her one roll of its land at a time.

She surveyed with her mind-sight and went on. The unfolding sweep of her view was more thinly treed than the Morook and hot for her travels. She headed for shade beyond shallow banks, on to the upper side of the slope.

Slowing to breathe and easily tired, she knelt on the ground to take the Dragon boy's wrap off. She spread it flat on the earth, a bit before an opening in sparser bushes ahead. Peering through the few straggling trunks and odd clumps of brush, she could see a slight ridge with more trees.

Relief encouraged her to stay present and not fade into earth before going on. The climb was about to be easier this time and she was pleased she would get much further ahead in the cooler leaf shade. It will keep me still fresh, while Sun thinks to settle more onto the far-lands.

She liked to see where she was, as well as to 'sense' her surroundings, but the trees ahead would be her best path in the warmth of this day.

On the ground, she intended to place the few things that she brought onto the surface of the wrap and bundle them together for ease of carrying her very light load. She found the inner layer of the boy's thread-bare weave—too close for her senses to bear.

She examined the strange thing—its arms and its head hole. The weave is so old—not at all near the strength of the odd wrappings the boy had worn. But it seems like the same. A new thought struck her. Has there been another boy dragged by the Eldwahr from Dragon Efflington's land? Can the Eldwahr open and close the void as much as he wants?

Knowing she couldn't answer her worries—they now were sadly a thing of her past—Seileah was about to make up the bundle to tie to two sticks. But before she was able, she heard a child call out somewhere in the distance ahead. He raced into the clearing from the opposite direction, coming towards her, through a copse of the trees.

Staring between closer thin poplars and odd other trees as much as she could, she saw the boy now was confronted! She gasped, aware the same human in raggedy furs she'd encountered before stepped out toward the hurrying boy, on the far side of the open area. The man had was close enough that she should have known this human was here—in spite of his whereabouts behind a big marplult to one side of the space.

"Master Faster!" the boy yelled as he ran up to the man. "Master Fastbender, I've found you the thing you were after." The boy made an abrupt halt, a little taken aback by the force of the man's presence, just as she was. This youngling too is a human, although he seems clearly in awe and scared of this being.

The 'Master Fastbender' the boy had called him, emanated power in his serious stance. The 'huge-man-fur creature' drew himself taller. His grave dignity pierced through the boy and—still as a pinnacle along a horizon, remained yet in silence—a pause laid in wait for the child to find heart and produce whatever it was he had brought to be shared.

The child himself, didn't think he could move. He awaited the Master Fastbender's permission.

By eye-guess alone, this boy might be about the same seasons of growth as Sona. Hard to tell when a human child is so large. And humans are said to get their small out a lot more quickly than implings. Seileah's heart twanged again at reminders of home. Are the implings my people? I too am tall for my kind. Clearly, I'm not a human though, she thought with relief.

This boy had a tussle of sand-like, twiggy hair. He had wearings much flatter and different than Master-beady-eyed man with his donned furs of passed beings not returned to the earth. The man never answers, nor speaks to the child. But his stiff appearance says all enough. Seileah clenched inside. She knew how it felt to be shut out unfairly.

The boy, over time, had to insist the man take the object he'd offered, as the man only stood. "Master Fastbender, Rurock, Sir. I brought the item just like Father said you had asked. It is the only—the very best one I could find. If you like it, I'll go and fetch you another. There'll be more, too, if I could be granted some more scouting time—with your permission—and bring father to tell him you want me to go."

But the man, instead, advanced to sit on the ground. He balanced himself ever so lightly on his staff at his side. It, too, was dangling bobbles. His furs and bangles knocked closely together, making a musical noise when he dropped. He settled straight into a crouch on one leg. One bare foot, with a red ankle braid that also dangled thin cords, lifted up off the ground and bent over the other thigh, by itself.

And then, in the steadiest, strangest, one-legged movement Seileah could imagine anyone wishing to do, the weight of both legs and his body together were borne on top the bent standing leg and down it folded to sit on the ground, with the man's pole now laying beside him. Without hardly a pause, the human had balanced himself onto just one leg and then sunk to the earth— Once there, he might have just nodded to a spot in front of himself. Did he? Did I see him do that? It was barely a motion. Yes, the boy thought he moved. Is this where he should put the object?

The boy bent and reached out as far as he dared, close to the man, to put the lump into dust—and shrunk back to a distance, now feeling he might be invited to chat. "My father says you are the Fastbender of Worlds and that you need these things to make all the plains of existence shape the way that you want. I can bring you some more."

The boy inched a little further away, in case he had misspoken, while the elder in furs—being three times the height of Seileah's own Eldwahr—just reached forward and picked the thing up. It looked like a dark, smooth river moon-rock.

Soon enough, after having turned the black stone in his hand over and over several times more, he placed it back in the dirt just where the boy had done. He reached now into a pouch and poured a pile of small bones belonging to a mawklek or possibly squarl, onto his palm.

Then, he stretched and picked up a handful of grass blades from the ground close by the roots of the tree and sprinkled them over the bones in his hand. He next blew on the pile, as if he were testing the wind.

After this test had satisfied him, he scattered the tiny dry remnants of carcass around the smooth black stone, paying close attention to where they all landed.

His eyes closed and the lightness Seileah knew of the forest became more intense. What transformation is this? Seileah could hear a hum begin to emanate from in the man's throat, then his body, then from the earth and soon from the glade.

The boy was gaping around—eyes aglow—as bushes waved and the bones around the stone rose from the dearth and slowly began to circle the stone.

The stone became the center of movement. Bits of grass and dry twigs and leaves, some dust—all of it—swarmed in a pattern, long enough until the man in the furs became pleased—at which point, he abruptly thrust his palm into the air and—

—the mass of bits dropped and the hum disappeared, as if a hand were brought to clamp at its ceremonial throat.

With not another word said, the Fastbender of Worlds leaned and seemed to creak again forward. He gathered the delicate bird bones and stiffly rose, this time on two legs and he put the stone into his robes and grunted with such a slight nod to the boy that Seileah thought surely he would now have to speak.

But he didn't say a word, even then. The boy, gaping closely, took the man's meaning and then he was off—running back the way he had come.

Seileah thought she should wait until the human had gone before she would gather her things, but the Fastbender of Worlds stayed where he was. Instead of going about his usual business, he listened to something unseen, and suddenly, much to Seileah's shock and horror, turned and looked directly at her. She gasped.

How did he know I was here? Again, like before, she froze in her place and the man watched her, not budging an eye—not for a wink, nor even a muscle.

He waited for her to make the first move.

This time she did not want to lose track of where he was going, since she was planning to have to move through his land; and she had learned already before from watching the man, there were more unpredictable things than just sprites in this country of hillsides. She was beyond the greatness and cliffs of the Morook and she did not know all the creatures about. She would have to learn what they were.

He watched her eyes and seemed to know what she pondered and then without any warning, he snapped his staff hard onto the ground—twice. It wallopped beside him.

The world before her seemed to split open and—in the very same glade—a shimmer transformed it.

The maplult tree seemed to impossibly age. It grew bigger—seasons raced by at such incredible pace.

Having more time now cast upon it—the marplult tree formed a huge cavern deep in the midst of its trunk, carved out by the way it had twisted and grown.

As soon as she saw the space in the tree, the man disappeared. It seemed—at the same time, inside the hollow—now was a woman, appearing to sit, just as the man before her had been, but wearing his furs and inside this tree.

Seileah was startled.

"What do you see, Child?" The figure spoke—still holding Seileah's gaze—but picking a space in between teeth, while the breeze around her waited for answers.

It was true. The woman was covered in the same raggedy furs about both her shoulders, much as the man's in every detail. Her robes were actually his, so were the bangles and bobbles. Even the red anklet cord was tied to her foot. It was just peaking out where she'd gathered her legs beneath her to sit in the tree.

"How— Who are you?" Seileah spoke, finding her courage through the numbness of fear.

"Ah! I asked you first." The woman just sat there and watched her, exactly the way the man had done only moments ago. "Tell me, what do you see?"

"I see you—a woman inside a tree." Seileah felt there was a bit of a mystery to the question she'd asked and Seileah did not want to be tricked.

"And what trap has caught you?"

"I'm not caught in a trap." But then Seileah thought of her family and all the things that didn't make sense. A moment's silence ensued.

"Is the thing that people believe always the truth?" questioned the woman.

Seileah frowned, but answered, "No, I guess it isn't."

"And so do you know what the truth really is?"

"What do you mean?" Seileah's head swam.

"Law changes with understanding of self. Isn't that so?"

"I don't remember the laws I had—before I broke them."

"Perhaps only the laws of the spirit remain. And the land—isn't it sacred?"

"Yes, it means every voice dear to me."

"How much does it mean?"

"Why everything. Like I said so. I think. How much should it mean?" Seileah had no idea what the woman was hinting.

The woman laughed—a big broad, partly-toothed kind of a laugh. "Our first teachers are always our hearts, are they not?"

Seileah hoped an answer might not be required, since she couldn't remember at all that far back.

"Do not worry for the minds of your people, Dear Girl. Each person provides his own conscience. Ask questions only from your heart and you will be answered alone deep inside you."

"But my heart is sworn to my people—"

"We are all one, child—dancing on Mother and spinning through Skye. We haven't eyes to see all things at once. One mind, by itself, is not able to touch the wholeness of wisdom."

"Weren't you just a man, who talked to a boy? Why are you here?"

"I am just what I am."

Then suddenly there was fire ringed with rock in front of the woman, where—only moments before—no sticks or stones had been on the ground. The sky seemed a darker hue of mauves and reds through the lighter tree background—all in a flash—

≈≈≈/

This chapter continues... I had to split it in two. I hope you'll read on. I'm posting both so you can continue now or next chance, however you wish. :)