Vanyel could only blink at him in bewilderment.
Moondance shook his head, ruefully. “I go too fast for you. Simple things first. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Would you like to bathe?”
All at once he washungry - and thirsty - and disgustingly aware that his skin was crawling with the need for a bath.
“All three,” he said, a little hesitantly.
“Then we remedy all three.” Moondance pulled the curtains back to the foot and the head of the bed, and -
- and reached to pull off the blankets. At which point Vanyel realized that he was quite nude beneath the bed-coverings. He flushed, and clutched at the blanket.
Moondance gave him an amused look. “Who do you think it was that undressed you and put you where you are?” he asked. “I pledge you, it was not the Eastern Wind.”
Vanyel flushed again, but did not release the blanket.
“So, so - here, my modest one - “ Moondance reached up to one side among the hangings, and detached something which he tossed onto the blankets. Vanyel reached for it - a wrap-robe of something green and silken that was, thankfully, much more substantial than the hangings. As Moondance pointedly turned his back, he eased out of the bed and wrapped it around himself.
And reached for one of the bed-supports as dizziness made the room spin around him.
“That will never do.”There was a cool touch between his eyes, and the room steadied.
“Come,” Moondance was just in front of him, holding out his hands encouragingly. “Keep your eyes on me - yes. A step. Another. You have been long abed, young Vanyel, you must almost learn to walk again.”
The TayledrasHealer walked backward, slowly, as Vanyel followed, looking only at his eyes. But he did not move to give the boy support in any way, except the one time Vanyel stumbled and nearly fell. Then Moondance caught him; held him until he could find his balance again, and only when Vanyel was standing firmly again did he draw away.
Vanyel was vaguely aware that they had crossed a threshold into another room, but just walkingwas costing him so much sweating, concentrated effort he didn’t dare look around any. It seemed to take years before Moondance stopped, caught his elbow, and guided him to a seat on a smooth rock ledge that rimmed a raised pool of water so hot that it steamed.
“Now, look about you.” Moondance waved at the pool and the rest of the room. “This is the pool for washing. Here is soap. When you are clean, go there, the pool for resting.”
Though the pool Vanyel was sitting beside was deep, it was quite small. Next to the “pool for washing” was another, much larger, much deeper, and slightly above it, with an opening in the side that spilled hot water down into this pool. Both pools looked natural; rock-sided and sandy-bottomed.
“I think even weak as you are, you shall be able to find your way there. I shall return with food and drink.” The young man hesitated a moment - then with the swiftness of a stooping hawk, leaned over and kissed Vanyel full on the lips. “You are very welcome, young Vanyel,” he said, before Vanyel had a chance to get over his surprise. “We are pleased to have you, Starwind and I, and not just for the sake of Wingsister Savil.”
He vanished before Vanyel had a chance to react.
Vanyel found that if he moved slowly and carefully he didn’t exhaust himself. He shed the robe and eased himself into the water with a sigh, and soaped and rinsed until he finallyfelt clean again. His pool emptied itself over the side and down a channel in the floor - and where the water went from there he couldn’t say. He had figured by now that this was some kind of hot spring, which accounted for the metallic tang in the air.
With Moondance gone, he had a chance to get a good look around while trying to sort himself out. There didn’t appear to be any “doors” as such in this dwelling; just doorways. This bathing room was multileveled; highest level was the “pool for resting” which cascaded to the next level and the “pool for washing,” which in turn was above the “floor” and the channel carrying the water away that was cut into it. There were no windows in the walls of natural rock; the whole was lit by a skylight taking up the entire ceiling, and there were green and flowering plants and ferns standing and hanging everywhere. There was only one entrance into this room - that led back to the bedroom, also rock-walled and roofed with a skylight, from what Vanyel could see of it.
The ledge between the pools was notthat high, though it took far more of Vanyel’s strength to get over it than he would have believed. Once in the larger pool he discovered that his surmise was right; crystalline hot water bubbled up from the sand in the center of the pool; someone had improved on nature by forming the rock of the pool sides below the waterline into smooth benches.
It was wonderful; the water was about as hot as was comfortable, and was forcing him to relax whether or not he wanted to. He closed his eyes and sat back, deliberately thinking of absolutely nothing, and only opened them again when he heard light footsteps crossing the stone floor below him.
It was, as he expected, Moondance, who had brought with him an earthenware beaker of what proved to be cider and a plate of sliced bread and cheeses and fruit.
“Eat lightly,” the young man warned, climbing to Vanyel’s level and setting his burdens down on the rim of the pool at Vanyel’s right hand. “You have been three weeks without true food, and spent more than one of those days drugged.”
“Three weeks?”
Moondance shrugged. “You needed Healing, of a kind your good Healer Andrel could not give you. I think perhaps no Healer among your folk could have given you such Healing; they know nothing of the Healing of hurts caused by magic, only of illness and wounding. Thatis a study only a few have made, and most of those few Tayledras. Eat, young Vanyel. There are herbs in the bread and the drink to strengthen you.”
“Where - where is Savil?” he asked, suddenly a little worried at being alone with a stranger.
“With Starwind. She was very weary, both in body and in soul. This - thing that has happened. It has been a deep grief to her, as well to you. Her heart is as sore, I think. They are old friends, my shay’kreth’ashkeand Savil, and there are no secrets between them, and much love. She has need of such love. Perhaps more than you, for shehas had no one to lend her support.”
Vanyel had looked up at him sharply at that - with the word ashkestriking him with the force of a cold slap in the face, making his heart pound painfully.
Moondance looked down at him, something speculative in his glance. He weighed Vanyel for a moment, then cleared his throat and looked away, deliberately. “I have a thing to say to you, a thing I wish you to think upon.”
Vanyel put down his cider, and waited, apprehensively, to hear the rest.
“I have shared your thoughts; I know more of you than anyone, except, perhaps, your shay’kreth’ashke.”
Moondance changed his position so that he was sitting with his back to the pool, leaning his weight against his hands and staring up at the clouds visible through the skylight. He was being very careful notto look at Vanyel.
“As you have guessed from my words,” he said, “I am shay’a’chern. As is Starwind. As you.” Now he gave Vanyel a very brief, sidelong glance. “I am a Healer-Adept and I Heal more than people - I Heal places. I know the natural world as only one who wishes to restore it to its rightful balances can. This is the thing I wish to tell you; in all the world, there are more creatures than just man that make lifetime matings. Among them, some of the noblest - wolves, swans, geese, the great raptors-all creatures man could do worse than emulate, in many, many ways. And with all of them, all, there are those pairings, from time to time, within the same gender. Not often, but not unheard of either.”