“Yes, little brother, he is,” Snowfire replied quietly, with an odd inflection in his voice. Darian opened his eyes, to see the Hawkbrother looking down at him with - what? Pity? Understanding? He couldn’t tell; he hadn’t seen anyone in Errold’s Grove wearing either expression around him.
Just then, over on the other side of the hut, Wintersky snorted in his sleep, turned over, and mumbled. That seemed to make up Snowfire’s mind about something.
“Here,” he said, getting to his feet, and holding out his hand. “We shouldn’t wake Wintersky, and I don’t think you’ll be getting back to sleep soon, so let’s go for a walk.”
Darian hesitantly accepted the outstretched hand; Snowfire pulled him to his feet, then turned toward Hweel’s perch and held out his arm to the huge owl. He wasn’t wearing his arm-guard, and Darian gasped and winced as Hweel stepped onto the bare flesh - but the owl barely closed his feet around the arm and half-spread his wings to keep his balance instead of maintaining it by gripping the arm.
Snowfire turned to give him a reassuring smile. “Remember, Hweel isn’t an ordinary owl; I’m only going to take him outside to let him step up onto the roof. He can be very soft-footed when he needs to be for me.”
Yes, but if he gets unbalanced and can’t save himself, he may forget what’s under those talons - Mindful of that possibility, Darian stepped in front of Snowfire and held the curtain of vines aside so that the Hawkbrother wouldn’t have to juggle vines and owl at the same time. With a nod of thanks, Snowfire stepped out into the night, with the mage-light trailing at his shoulder. Darian followed him.
Once outside, Snowfire raised his arm just enough that Hweel could move onto the end of an exposed roof-beam. Hweel stepped off his arm carefully, settled his feathers, looked all around, in that bizarre way only owls could. His head went nearly all the way around, then he settled on a direction, crouched down, and pushed off, flapping hard, vanishing silently into the darkness. Snowfire turned, just as silently, and after a backward glance at Darian, walked slowly along the path.
After a breath of hesitation, Darian caught up with him. Wintersky had given him what he called “sleeping clothes” - that was a new idea to Darian, who generally slept in that day’s shirt and put on a clean one in the morning, but he’d obediently changed into the odd garments every night. He saw now that Snowfire wore very similar clothing; a draped, pullover shut of some light, loosely-woven, cool material, and drawstring trousers gathered at the ankle made of the same stuff. Darian felt a little like a ghost, walking barefoot through the sleeping camp in the pale garments.
Ghosts . . . how many ghosts haunted Errold’s Grove now? One, at least. Or would Justyn have stayed to haunt the place?
“What are you thinking?” Snowfire asked quietly, hardly above a whisper.
“I was thinking - about Justyn,” he replied, feeling sorrow again rise to close his throat.
“I think that he must have been a very good and brave man,” came the quiet reply. “People of his sort do not need to linger, haunting their old homes; ghosts are those who left things undone, and I cannot think he left anything undone that truly needed doing.”
“Where - “ He couldn’t manage anything more.
But Snowfire must have guessed his question. “Having had no personal experience of one who has gone, I cannot give you firsthand evidence,” he replied, as one hand somehow came to rest on Darian’s shoulder as a comforting weight. “But - well, I know enough folk who have, whose word I trust, to make me certain that we do not simply cease to be. But as for the nature of the path he took, the faith we Tayledras profess tells us that each path is different, according to the belief and the nature of the one who takes it.” He paused. “I am not certain what your people believe, but would you care to hear what one who had been a Herald supposedly told one of my people?”
“I - yes,” Darian said, after a moment. One who had been a Herald? But Heralds don’t quit being Heralds, so -
“He said, or so I was told,” Snowfire replied, interrupting Darian’s thoughts, “that when a Herald dies, he is given three choices. One is that he may return again as a Herald-to-be, the second that he return as a Companion, and the third is that he have some time in a place where all his desires are granted. I suspect that your teacher has been given the same choices.”
Darian blinked as his eyes blurred, and felt tears coursing down his cheeks. “I hope - I hope whatever he picked, he got a lot of magic!” he choked.
Snowfire’s hand closed briefly on his shoulder. “I think that he must,” the Hawkbrother replied. “In fact, I cannot imagine anything else.”
That was too much for Darian, and he lost his last shreds of control. He stumbled, and started to sob, and found Snowfire holding him just the same way as his father used to when some childish grief overcame him. Darian forgot that he was supposed to be a man, forgot that men didn’t cry - forgot everything except that he had failed to help Justyn, he had failed to help bis father and mother, and now they were all dead and he was utterly alone.
He cried silently as he had learned to do since his parents’ death, sobs shaking his frame, leaning on Snowfire, who simply held him and rocked a little from side to side, saying nothing. And only when the worst of his terrible grief had passed, did it dawn dimly on him that he really wasn’t alone after all. . . .
Finally, there were no more tears left, and Snowfire let him go at the exact instant when he thought of pulling away, more than a little embarrassed.
“Don’t be ashamed for allowing yourself to feel, little brother,” came the quiet words. “You should rather feel sorry for those who do not. They are either cripples - or very sick in soul.”
As he stared at the Hawkbrother in astonishment, Snowfire patted his shoulder. “I think that a midnight swim might be a good thing for both of us,” he said, and gave Darian a gentle push to start him moving again.
Darian was in a bit of a daze, and it seemed as if they only took a few steps farther before they came to the two ponds, their water reflecting the stars and a sliver of moon above them. Snowfire simply stripped off his garments and plunged in; after a moment of hesitation, Darian copied his example.
He had expected the water to feel cold, but he had been standing in the night air long enough that it was only pleasantly cool. He swam back and forth on his back, staring up at the stars, letting his mind empty of everything. He didn’t stop until his arms and legs were tired and he was beginning to feel a little waterlogged. Only then did he stop to tread water, and saw Snowfire was back on the bank, putting on his clothing, the mage-light still hovering near him, but much brighter now.
He paddled back to the same place, and looked up at a towel being held out for him to take. He dried himself off, and started to look around for his discarded clothing, but it wasn’t where he’d left it. Quickly, he wrapped the towel around his waist, wondering what had happened to it, when Snowfire noticed his confusion and pointed. There, neatly folded on a rock, was a fresh set of garments.
“Hertasi,” was all Snowfire said, as he turned his attention to carefully braiding his long hair. Quickly, Darian slipped into the clean clothes, and used the towel on his own hair to cover his uncertainty about what to do or say next.