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Topiara - Chapter 46
"Is it just me, or is this path rising?" Jilan asked, stopping and hanging onto the zumi railing to stare towards the forest floor.
"I'inshaa. We come closer to the heart of the Great Forest with every step now," Yiren told him, pausing to turn so that all four could hear her. "The older trees are much taller – and the h'sini'il are closer together. Actually, in the heart of the Great Forest – and in the Mother Trees of each Ru'an, there are no h'sini'il – only h'sin." She smiled at them. "Like h'sini'il, only much larger and with many more Vri'ia'ani."
"And the mountains of fire and ice you spoke of?" Lyara asked.
"They are at the very heart of the Great Forest, Mistress," the young Vri'ia'ani woman replied. "The trees only grow part of the way up the side of the mountain – any higher and it is too cold. Even the zumi cannot survive there."
She turned and looked where a small group of Vri'ia'ani children were clambering about the branches of one of the trees to their right, calling to each other and swinging on zumi vines that had been left to dangle from one high branch to the next. "We're getting close to I'ilansru'an – the home of the Rotal and the Sin'at. We shall see more groups like that – learning the ways of the vri'i."
"Their version of schools," Farranby stated and then stared, his eyes caught by the sight of one of the children swinging from the zumi vines. "What is this place, Yiren?"
"I'm not sure. Let me ask." She turned and vaulted over the edge of the railing so quickly that none of the other had a chance to even squeak in fear and landed surely on a branch just a few paces below them. With a grace that made all of them stare in wonder, Yiren worked her way out and over tree branches until she'd met up with some of the clambering youngsters. Two of them paused to speak briefly with her, and then she was making her way back to the path by a slightly different route that had her climbing a dangling zumi vine and then dropping onto the path a few paces behind where she'd started. "I was right. We stand four levels below the very edge of I'ilansru'an." She pointed up the path. "There will be many ladders and levels between here and the other side."
Sharin pointed down at the branch below them. "Isn't it dangerous to just… jump… like you did?" she gaped.
Yiren shook her head and laughed. "Not to one raised in the trees, Mistress. The paths are a convenience – but they aren't the only way to get around in the Great Forest. I'd seen that branch below us a while back, and knew it was wide enough to catch me."
Farranby's gaze hadn't shifted from the youngster. "Lyara," he called softly. "Look." He pointed.
Lyara's gaze followed the extended index finger, and then she was leaning on the railing to get just a slightly better look. One of the children having such fun swinging from the vines and jumping from branch to branch wasn't red-haired like all the others, but wore a thick thatch of golden hair the color of ripe wheat. She looked back over to her old friend and could see that he had to restrain himself from leaping over the railing as Yiren had.
"Yiren," she called to the young woman, who then moved smoothly along the railed path to her side. "Do many of your people have hair that color?" she asked, pointing as Farranby had.
Yiren turned slowly to stare back at her. "No, Mistress," she answered softly. "We are taught that the color of our hair comes from the Great Forest itself as an adornment. Until I was captured and brought to Talandria, I'd never believed that people could have hair any other color."
"We need to find out who that child is – perhaps he is the son of my Herrista," Farranby stated in a voice made flat so as to control the excitement thrilling through his entire being.
"We could wait," Yiren suggested, "and simply follow the golden child to his home nets."
Farranby shook his head. "That could take hours."
"We will need to make arrangements for our stay here," Lyara stated with a tone of practicality. "Yiren, could you go out and ask the young man to come and talk to us for a moment?"
Jilan shook his head. "We're strange enough – even wearing shi'ili and speaking Vri'ia'ani – that we could frighten the boy into silence. We need to wait and then follow the boy when he heads home – or, at least, Yiren needs to follow him. She moves faster," he replied to the suddenly impatient glare from Farranby, "and she could prepare the way for us to talk to the boy's mother."
Sharin put a hand on her lover's arm. "You don't want to be so impatient as to make the first impression you make on a possible grandson a very bad one, do you?" she asked him gently.
Farranby sighed heavily. "It's just so hard…"
"I know it is," Lyara decided, "but Jilan and Sharin are right. If we truly are close, then a little patience on our part would be a wisdom." She gazed at her friend. "What if your daughter doesn't remember you?"
Farranby's eyes flashed. "Have you forgotten your parents' faces, Lyara?"
Lyara shook her head. "Herrista was much younger than I was when she was taken from you, Farranby. Of course I remember my parents – I watched them die."
"I too council waiting as the best next step," Yiren offered carefully. "This child acts as if he's spent his entire life in the trees – if that's the case, then his mother lives by and teaches the way of the vri'i. We should move within the accepted ways of doing things – and perhaps even make our inquiries through another person."
"We don't know anybody else," Farranby pointed out sharply.
"I suggest we move down a little closer to where the children are, and then settle down to wait," Jilan responded. "Farranby's right – we don't know anybody here to have act or speak on our behalf, so we'll have to act directly. But we don't need to frighten the boy to get to the mother. You've been patient this long," he aimed his last question at the older man, "you can be patient a little while longer, can't you?"
Lyara started when Yiren suddenly began to push herself to her feet. "What?"
"They prepare to return to their home nets," Yiren stated with the certainty of experience. "See how they have gathered about that older man?"
Lyara looked, and sure enough – there was an older man out on the branches with the young people, and they had seated themselves in a rough semicircle near him as allowed by the trees. "What are you going to do?"
"Move down the path so that I can be close when they decide to return to the h'sin. I need to see which ladder they use, and follow the golden boy." Yiren looked down the line of chan'vrii. "Stay here – I will return here when I have information that you can use."
Farranby's eyes followed their Vri'ia'ani friend as she walked casually down the path. She walked slowly enough that by the time she reached a point closer to where the children had been playing, many of them had already found their way back onto the narrow ribbon of woven zumi and were heading for the nearest ladder. It was very obvious that she didn't talk to or try to otherwise engage the blonde child, but followed him up the ladder.
"It'll be fine," Sharin soothed Farranby, snuggling into his side and putting a fond arm about his waist.
"To be SO close, and yet still so far away," he fussed, his eyes never leaving the ladder that Yiren had mounted so deftly. "I wonder how long it's going to take?"
Jilan and Lyara exchanged a glance and then went back to looking out over the spread of branches and leaves that surrounded them. Sitting on the edge of the path, feet dangling in mid-air, made it easy to look down and gain a real appreciation for just how far up in the air they were. "I never thought I'd feel as safe as I do this far off the ground," Lyara commented quietly. "I wonder if the Wolf-Faced One ever thought his help would be sought up so high?"
"I'm sure my Masters at the University in Tandri could never have imagined that one of their students would actually be spending time in the Vryies lands," Jilan nodded in agreement. "And have you noticed – we're even speaking Vri'ia'ani most of the time now? I think…" His words halted, but his hand touched the little pouch that hung about his neck that held his power flute. "…I'm getting help becoming fluent in the language."
"I know. I am too." Lyara touched the pouch that held Topiara. "Are you getting visions of mountains yet?"
Jilan nodded. "You too, eh?" Lyara nodded in response. "Do you know why these mountains are important yet?"
"I haven't been able to figure that one out yet," she shook her head. "So much of what I'm getting now is confusing."
The disquiet that Topiara had planted in the back of her mind all the way back in Alinber had yet to let up, but the dreams had started the second night they were in the trees. Suddenly she dreamed of awe-inspiring vistas of ice-covered mountain peaks that had smoke rising from them; or dreamed of the sound of a child's laughter and a small, dark head belonging to a young boy that always seemed to be so very important to her.
Jilan had to agree – Rodayn had been putting dreams into his sleep lately that made no sense whatsoever. Mountains that were burning – a small boy with dark hair like Lyara's; nothing he'd been shown seemed connected at all. "They must be expecting us to work all this out on our own," he sighed.
"I really wish they wouldn't do that," Lyara complained. "Although, I have to admit that not having a conversation going on in my head almost all the time has been almost a refreshing break."
Jilan looked over at Farranby and Sharin. "That poor man looks as if he's ready to jump out of his shi'ili."
"I don't blame him. I remember how I felt when I knew I was close to the lands that my clan claimed – and how excited and terrified I was when I realized that the old shaman was one who knew my father so well." Lyara leaned into Jilan a little, her hand moving up to touch the fetish in her hair for strength and courage.
Jilan's arm slid around his lover's shoulder. "I've often wondered, Lya…" he began, bringing Lyara's eyes to his face, "did you find what you were looking for up there?"
"I found my heritage," she told him softly, grateful for the warmth of the arm over her shoulders. "I reclaimed who and what I was – and was able to make the person I was before the slave raid part of me again." She leaned her head against his shoulder. "I'd grown up almost ashamed of being Kauwlut – I'm not anymore."
Jilan was about to bend down and declare his love for her when a call from Sharin cut through the silence of the late afternoon. Together Jilan and Lyara looked over and saw Yiren slipping expertly down the ladder she'd climbed earlier – with a smile on her face.
"What did you find out?" Farranby demanded immediately, clambering to his feet as quickly as he could. The others were following suit in case time were of the essence.
"I found where the boy and his mother call home," she announced triumphantly, "and the mother wears hair the same color as her son's."
"Did you speak to her?" Farranby moved closer in his excitement.
Yiren shook her head. "I didn't want to interrupt a private moment between mother and son," she told him gently. "We should go up now and present ourselves to the leaders of the h'sin and be assigned a place to stay – and then we can return to talk to your golden-haired boy and his mother."
Farranby turned pleading eyes on Lyara, who understood entirely the anxiety her friend was feeling. "I agree we need to make our presence known to those who matter – but would it be such a violation of the rules for Farranby to see if that woman is Herrista or not before we do?"
The Vri'ia'ani woman gazed at Farranby's face and finally relented. "I think that an exception can be made," she nodded and jerked her head in the direction of the ladder. "Follow me."
I'ilansru'an was very obviously larger and more densely populated than any of the smaller h'sini'il that the party had seen so far had been. As they walked across the broad platform of the first level toward the next ladder leading upwards, Yiren pointed out a small team of men kneeling on the platform and weaving vines in and out. "This whole platform is old," she explained and pointed down at her feet to indicate places where the zumi vines were not only polished smooth by the feet that had walked over it for years, but been worn thin. "New vines will have to be woven in with the old to prevent accidents."
Sharin looked back at the men whose hands seemed to move back and forth gracefully with a new appreciation. "Is there someone underneath to help…"
Yiren nodded. "Even in a h'sin like this, see how there is really no platform much larger than those you've seen before? There is a size limit past which it isn't safe to build – because of the need for occasional repair." She pointed to the ladder. "Two more levels to go, and two trees toward the sun."
Farranby's brows rose. "She lives on the third level?"
"The woman you seek weaves shi'ili, Master. Her skill is very well known, and her shi'ili worn by the Rotal himself," Yiren told him. "She is called Ista."
Farranby glanced down at Lyara sharply. "Herrista!" he muttered and then had to restrain himself from running for the ladder in favor of walking to it with the rest.
Lyara and Jilan could sense their friend's growing excitement and anxiety, and they said nothing as Yiren led them up the two more levels to a broad platform obviously dedicated to living space. There were woven walls denoting privacy along the back edge of the entire platform, and Yiren stopped in front of the opening on the left. "Here," she said, pointing.
Sharin stared and then looked at Yiren. "How do we… knock… or what do we…"
Farranby knew. He crouched down by the opening and rapped his knuckled sharply on the hardened zumi vines that made up the platform. "One awaits who would speak to Ista," he announced very formally in a voice loud enough to carry beyond the barrier and then sat back on his heels to wait.
"Ista is not taking orders at this hour," announced a woman's voice from within. "Return in the morning, and Ista will speak to you."
"I don't come to speak to you about shi'ili," Farranby insisted. "I come seeking Herrista, formerly of Rostelian in the Varren Straits."
There was a long moment of silence, and then a young woman with golden hair was looking out through the opening. "I've not been called that name for many, many turns of the seasons," she said in a voice that was shocked and a little hesitant. "Who knows this secret part of me?"
Farranby just stared at her. It was Sharin who moved up to her lover and put a hand on his shoulder. "We've come a long way to find you, Herrista. This is your father."
The young woman sank to her knees and stared at the older man carefully. "Papa?" she asked very softly in Vri'ia'ani-accented Talandri, her grey eyes filling with tears. "I thought you were dead…"
"Mi'um?" A child's voice spoke from deeper within the shelter. "Who is it?"
Ista reached out a trembling hand to touch her father's greying head. "We have a visitor, Ki'ien. Run and get your father." Slowly she folded her hands over her chest and bowed deeply to Farranby. "Please be welcome with us, my father," she continued in a voice that shook almost as badly as had her hand. "You and your friends are home – may the trees that shelter me always bend kindly to you too."
Farranby couldn't stand it anymore. He opened his arms wide – and slowly the woman who had been his youngest child moved into a tight and clinging hug. "May all the Gods be praised!" Farranby exclaimed brokenly. "I've found her!"
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