He climbed out of the pool and dried himself with his robe; he knew exactly where the clothing he'd arrived in was hung - the far end of Moondance's closet. He pulled it on as quickly as he could, taking the heavy cloak and draping it over one arm. One of the packs was in there, too, the one with the rest of his winter clothes. They were too warm to wear in the valley, so he'd never unpacked them, wearing instead Moondance's outgrown things. There was always food out in the room beside the one with the staircase; Tayledras sometimes kept odd hours. He niched enough bread and cheese to last several days and stuffed it into the pack with his clothing.
It took him most of a candlemark to reach the entrance to the valley. If it hadn't been snowing, he might have turned back at that moment - but it was, lightly, enough to cover his tracks. He swung the heavy cloak over his shoulders, braced himself for the shock of the temperature change, and stepped out into the dark and cold, remembering just in time to put up a shield so that he could not be tracked by his own aura.
"Two steps forward, one step back," Moondance's voice drifted up the ladder - Savil refused to call anything that steep a "staircase" - to Starwind's ekele; it was a good three breaths before Moondance himself appeared. His head poked through the hatchway in the gleaming wooden floor just as a gust of wind made the whole tree sway and creak.
Savil gulped, and gripped the arms of her low chair, looking resolutely away from the windows and their view of the birds flying by below them. Starwind never would tell her what it was they used in those windows instead of glass - which wouldn't have lasted ten breaths in a high wind. It was the same thing they used for the skylights, only thinner. Some kind of tough, flexible, transparent membrane - and Savil could not bring herself to believe that it would hold if you fell against it. The ekele creaked again, and she shuddered as she saw the window-stuff ripple a little with the warping of the window frames.
"Would you mind explaining that cryptic remark?" she asked, as the rest of Moondance emerged from the "entrance."
"Oh, thy pupil, Wingsister," he said, at his most formal, closing the hatchway against another gust of chill air. The ladder was sheltered, but not entirely enclosed - that would have been impractical - and Starwind couldn't see wasting a mage-barrier on the entrance to his "nest" when the hatchway served perfectly well most of the time. "Bright the day, Master-ashke. "
"Wind to thy wings," Starwind replied automatically, turning away from the window, his gloom brightening a little. "Shay'kreth'ashke, there is no 'Master' here for thee."
"Nay, till the day thy wings bear thee upwards, thou'rt my Master.'' Moondance glided across the unsteady floor to Starwind's side, as surefooted as a sailor on a moving deck.
"Enough, I'm drowning," Savil groaned. "Gods, life-bonded - it's enough to make me celibate. What about my pupil? And will you please come away from that window? I keep thinking the next gust is going to pitch you out."
"The window would hold. Besides, no Tayledras has fallen from his ekele in years beyond counting, Wingsister," Starwind said, turning his back to the window and leaning on the ledge.
"So the time is long past for it to happen, and I don't want it to be you, all right?" Another gust made the whole tree groan, and she clutched at the arms of the chair, her knuckles going white.
"Very well," Starwind was actually smiling as he stepped away from the window and folded himself bone-lessly into one of the chairs bolted to the floor of his ekele. He got a certain amount of pleasure out of teasing Savil about her acrophobia.
Each ekele was something like an elaborate treehouse; there was one for each major branch of the King Tree, some twenty in all. Not all were tenanted, and they were mostly used for meditation, sleeping, teaching, and recreation. For everything else, the "place below" served far better. But when a Tayledras needed to think, he frequently retreated to his ekele, sometimes for weeks, touching foot to ground only when he needed to.
An ekele consisted of a single windowed room, varying in size, made of polished wood so light in color that it was almost white, and furnished at most with a few chairs bolted to the floor, a table likewise bolted, and rolled pads stored in one corner for sleeping. Starwind's was one of the highest, hence, one of the smallest. The view was majestic. It was wasted on Savil.
Moondance took a third chair, and sat in it sideways, legs draped over the arms. "Well?" Savil demanded. "Are you going to explain yourself?"
"Your pupil. First, we strive to bring him to not depend upon others. So - then he pulls in upon himself, confiding not even in his Companion, hiding his pain within. Then I try to bring him to confess the pain, to share it, to reach out - "
"So?"
Moondance shrugged, and Savil sensed he hadn't told everything.
"What did you tell him?"
Moondance's moods could be read from his eyes; they were a murky gray-blue. "I - told him of myself. I thought if he could see that he is not the only soul in the world that feels pain, he might be brought to share it."
Savil's eyes narrowed; Moondance was unhappy. "Shayana, did he hurt you? If he did - "
"Na, the only one who hurt me was myself." His eyes cleared, and he gave her a wry smile. "He only pushed me away, is all. So, he hides all day, and this morning he is hiding again. His bed is empty, the hertasi say he went to the end of the vale, and his Companion says he has blocked her out entirely. To put it rudely, Wingsister, he is sulking."
Savil sighed, forgetting to clutch the arms of the chair. "Gods, what are we to do with him?"
Starwind's expression sobered again, and he began to answer - but was interrupted. Both Tayledras snapped to attention; their heads swung to face the window as if a single string had pulled them in that direction.
Two birds shot up from below and hovered there, just outside that window; the white gyrefalcon, and a second, of normal plumage. Starwind leaped out of his chair and flung the window open; the birds swirled in on the blast of wind that entered, and he slammed the window shut again.
Moondance had jumped to his feet, holding both arms out, ready for the birds, the moment Starwind went for the window. The falcons homed for him unerringly and were settling on the leather guards on his forearms before Starwind had finished latching the window closed.
The elder Tayledras held out his arm, and the burl falcon lofted to his forearm with a flutter of pinions, settling immediately.
Both Tayledras stared into their birds' eyes in silent communion. Savil kept as still as she could; while the bond between Hawkbrother and his birds was a strong one, and the magic-bred birds were considerably more than their wild brethren, their minds were something less than that of a very young child, perhaps a trifle superior to a cat, and it didn't take much to distract them.
The white falcon mantled; the buff cried. The Tayledras' eyes refocused, and Savil read "trouble" in the grim lines of their mouths.
"What?" she asked.
"First - tampering, as you had reported it to us, but this time on our grounu and not on k'Vala," Starwind said, soothing his bird by stroking its breast-feathers. "A clutch of colddrakes, from the look of it. Something has made them move, so when we deal with the drakes, we shall have to look farther afield; there are folk settled in that direction under k'Treva protection. This is the first time we have caught the culprit in the act, and I do not intend to take this lightly.''