Exile's Children (95 page)

“No, I think they're like us.” Davyd's excited face grew speculative and he raised a hand to indicate greater height. “They live out in the open and they're called something like
mat-ah-why-ee
.”

“Like us, eh?” Arcole smiled. “And fled here too? Is everyone here an exile?”

“I think it must be so.” Davyd nodded. “I think that Colun plans to take us to them when you're well enough to travel.”

“That shall not be long now,” Arcole said, smiling as Flysse murmured a warning, “for I heal apace.” He paused, then asked, “Do you dream of what lies ahead?”

Davyd nodded again and told them of his dreams.

They had begun soon after his arrival in the Grannach cavern. Dreams of safety at first, as if whatever power shaped his oneiric visions would reassure him this sanctuary was sound. Then they had grown stranger, but slowly clearer and more precise. It was as if, he thought, another mind reached out to communicate with him.

He dreamed of rolling plains, great forests and wide rivers, and of tall, handsome folk mounted on horses; of villages comprised all of painted tents, filled with laughing children. And yet, encompassed within those images, he had felt a sorrow as if something were lost or left behind; and also a great hope, as if the people of his dreams put doubt behind them and looked to a brighter future.

Gradually a single figure had emerged—that of a man whose hair was white as snow, though he was not yet old, and whose face was clearer than any other. A kind and gentle face that smiled out of the dream and spoke in silence, a hand raised to beckon Davyd to him.

“I think,” Davyd said, “that he greets me. I think he welcomes us to his country.”

“Then,” Arcole declared, “it would be churlish of us to refuse, no?”

“Not,” Flysse said firmly, “until you are quite well.”

Time had little meaning in the cavern. That the Grannach controlled its light seemed to confuse the natural pace of the days, as if the exiles' bodies missed the regulation of sunrise and sunset, and as Arcole's
wound slowly healed, he began to chafe at this new confinement. Davyd, too, began to express impatience. His dreams grew more imperative, as if the white-haired man would have them come to him before the summer ended. Only Flysse was content to linger, and that because she'd know her husband fully recovered before they embarked on fresh adventures.

At last the wound
was
full-healed. Marjia no longer insisted Arcole wear a compress, nor that he swallow the recuperative drafts, and one day Colun told them—through Davyd—that it was time to go.

They said their farewells and gathered up their packs. The Grannach had already gifted them with fresh clothing, sewn to their sizes, and now added food. With an escort led by Colun, they quit the fabulous cavern.

Colun brought them through the winding tunnels to a mountain valley where sheep and deer grazed under the benign light of a latesummer sun. It was a joy to walk once more under blue skies, to see clouds sail the winds and feel the fresh breeze on their faces.

Stranger still to find a welcoming party camped in the foothills, as if they were not refugees but expected and welcome guests whose arrival had been somewhat delayed.

Arcole and Flysse gazed in wonder as tall men clad in buckskins, their hair tied in long braids, hailed the Grannach. Arcole fingered his musket, murmuring, “They look like the demons.”

“They're friends,” Davyd said confidently.

He stepped forward, his gaze locked firm on the white-haired man who opened his arms and said, “Well met, brother. I am Morrhyn.”