RAYEK’S INTERLUDE
by Wordgazer


	This story takes place during the year between the shattering of the
Palace and the war to regain the Shards.
	The storm was over.  Rayek had glided through it over the Vastdeep’s
lashing waves, in darkness that shattered into skyfire over and over, not
heeding the rain that soaked him through.  Very near where he had left her, 
had left the Palace of the High Ones for the last time, he had screamed her 
name, once and then again, into the storm.  She had not answered.
	And now, in the freshness of the evening after that storm, as Rayek
tried to stand quietly for the Wolfrider Moonshade to fit to him the new clothes
she had made, he suddenly felt the impression he had both cried out for and
feared to feel that night:  Winnowill.  She was immensely pleased, having just
gained power over someone who could give her power.  He felt her inward laugh of
triumph and gasped out her name as he realized who it was she had in her coils
this time-- the leader of the humans who had taken most of the Palace’s broken,
crystal pieces.
	He meant no discourtesy to Moonshade, but his thanks were perfunctory.  
Absently registering her annoyance, he escaped from her, his mind still reeling
from what he now knew.
	Rayek sought the cave Ekuar had formed for them and kept sealed-- mainly,
he knew, to give Rayek some distance from the presence of Cutter’s tribe.  The
 cave opened immediately upon Rayek’s sending, and he sat down inside, drawing
strength from the ancient rock-shaper’s serenity.  He told Ekuar what he had
sensed, finishing with bowed head, “Not now, but soon . . . soon . . . there
must be war!  And I am not the only one that feels it!”
	Ekuar took a deep breath, laid a hand on Rayek’s arm.  “War with the
humans, Brownskin?  Perhaps he is searching for some other way.”
	Each of them knew who the other was referring to.  Rayek shook his head.
“There is no other way, Ekuar.  And it is driving me to distraction how he goes
on, day after day, as if there were nothing to do but hunt, prepare for the white
cold, and raise that new wolf pup of his!”
	Ekuar sighed.  “The young chief has his own way of doing things, Brownskin.
He will move in his own time.”
	Rayek struck his palm with a clenched fist.  “That is what maddens me!
His time, his plans-- whatever they are-- his way!  It is of no importance what
anyone else wants.”
	There was a pause. Then Ekuar said gently, “He has been meeting with his
 tribe’s elders.”
	Rayek took a deep breath, released it.  “I know.  But we are not privy to
their councils.”
	Ekuar raised an eyebrow.  “Did you expect to be?”
	This made Rayek smile in spite of himself.  “Of course not.  But I am
still Master of the Palace.  I should at least be told what they are planning!”
	“I doubt if they know for certain themselves, yet.”  Ekuar gazed at him
thoughtfully.  “But you said  the young chief also realizes time is short.  I
don’t think he will delay overlong.”
	“You are right, old friend,” said Rayek slowly.  “I came to know much
more of the wolf chief than I ever wanted, in that fight in the troll caverns.
He feels, as I do-- and as the others do not-- the relentless passage of the days
since the Palace shattered.  He knows he must make a move soon.”  Rayek shook
his head again.  “What is really bothering me is Cutter’s manner.  He acts as
if--”
	“--As if he were accustomed to being in charge?”  Ekuar’s eyes twinkled.
	Rayek laughed.  “Exactly so.  I suppose I should not fault him for that.
But it does not make it any easier to bear.”
	“It is difficult, dear one, for a nature such as yours.”  Ekuar smiled
softly. 
	“May I suggest you occupy yourself by preparing any way you can for the
ordeal to come?”
	Rayek paused, then nodded slowly.  “Once again you are right.  There are
things I can be doing.”
	“I imagine so,” said Ekuar vaguely.  Rayek could sense that now Ekuar had
succeeded in calming him, his mentor was beginning to drift again into the
pleasant fog that enveloped so much of his time.  And it was growing late. 
Rayek thanked the old one softly, pulled the furs around himself, and lay
thinking about what needed doing, until at last he slept.

	The following evening Venka and Zhantee came to the cave as Rayek sat
brooding on a rock outside the entrance.  Venka smiled fondly at Rayek, but Zhantee
dropped his eyes.  Rayek felt a pang.  In his pain at the loss of the Palace and
of Winnowill, he had been more than a little brusque at first with those who had
tried to comfort him.  Venka and Ekuar had persisted in spite of it, but
Zhantee, being who he was, had effaced himself and withdrawn.  Rayek had seen
little of him since that first dreadful day of his loss.
	“Father,” said Venka.  “You know about Scouter and Tyleet?”
	Rayek smiled and nodded.  Recognition was a thing to be glad of whether
one was	part of the tribe or not.
	Venka went on.  “Soon they will return, and it will be an occasion to
celebrate. Zhantee and I thought to bring in fresh meat in readiness.  Would you,
perhaps, wish to hunt with us?”
	An image flashed into Rayek’s mind-- a stag, wounded but not beaten,
fighting for its life one cool, new-green day.  Venka and Zhantee, then as now,
were trying to give him something productive to fill his time.  He had no wish to
hunt in that manner again-- to inflict suffering once more on another creature. 
But now there was no need.  He had his magic again.  And he owed these two, and
through them all the Wolfriders, for keeping him supplied with food during the
long absence of his powers.  Rayek was not one to let a debt go unpaid.
	He smiled at Venka, laid a hand on Zhantee’s shoulder.  Zhantee’s head
jerked up, and he returned Rayek’s smile.  Rayek said, “Of course.  It is the least
I can do, with all the fresh meat you have brought me.   But this time I need no
weapons.  I will hunt as I once did in the Sun Village, and improve on it!”
	“It will be-- interesting-- to see that, Father,” said Venka.

	It was a tusk hog-- not unlike the bristle-boars he had hunted in Sorrow’s
End. 
	Rayek floated from a low branch into its path, heard its startled snort
turn to an angry grunt.  “Softly, my friend,” he told it as his gaze entranced and
paralyzed it.  “You will not feel this.”
	One intensely focused blast of power between the eyes, and it was over.
Zhantee had seen Rayek transfix prey in the desert, but then he had always finished
it with a knife.  Venka had never seen Rayek hunt in this way at all.  Rayek winced
inside at how tempting it was to preen himself under their praise.  But he was
not re-treading that old ground.
	“To say truth,” he said, “without the Palace near, I do not know how much of
my magic is still unspent.  I am not accustomed to using it to kill.”
	“It is enough, Father,” Venka replied, and Zhantee nodded.
	“Others will be hunting too, Rayek,” he said, with his diffident smile.
“I’m sure this will be plenty.”
	Rayek found that his magic was still more than sufficient to float his kill
back to the Wolfriders’ Holt.  After all, what would be the use of beginning to repay
an old debt if no one knew he was paying it?
	Most of the Wolfriders were at the Holt when they arrived.  Treestump raised
his eyebrows at Strongbow as Rayek floated the tusk hog to a tree, and Venka and
Zhantee helped him lash its legs to a branch.  Strongbow’s expression did not
change, but his eyes moved to Cutter as the wolf chief, catching the scent,
leapt down from the tree to inspect the kill.  Skywise, following him, whistled
softly.  Rayek saw Pike grin at Skot and Krim.
	“Nice kill, Rayek,” said Cutter.  There was a question in his voice.
	Rayek looked at Nightfall, who was watching with Redlance from a nearby
branch. “Perhaps now you will eat of my kill,” he said softly.  “I have eaten of your
tribemates’--” he indicated Venka and Zhantee— “these six turns of the seasons.” 
His eyes moved to Clearbrook’s as she sat next to Treestump.  “And it seems you
will soon have reason to make a feast,” he added.  Clearbrook smiled.
	“Not a mark on him,” said Skywise, still looking at the tusk hog.  “Did you
talk him to death, Rayek?”
	Venka’s lips curved.  Leetah chuckled softly as she slipped down the tree. 
Cutter gave him a considering look as Rayek stood there with folded arms.
	“What matters is that it’s fresh meat,” the wolf chief said.  “And as Rayek
said, we’ll need plenty when Tyleet and Scouter get back.”
	Nightfall smiled down at Rayek.  “Of course we’ll accept your gift,” she said. 
“And you’ll come to the feast, won’t you?  You and Ekuar?”
	Rayek’s eyes met Cutter’s.  The wolf chief gave him a single, frank nod.
Leetah came softly and laid both hands on Rayek’s arms with a warm smile.  “Thank you,
dear friend,” she said.
	Rayek returned her smile, looking into her upturned face.  It seemed that the
paying of this particular debt was going to be quite . . . rewarding.

	What needed doing was to try to remember every slightest detail he had seen
in the Scroll of Colors that might help him understand how to restore the Palace to
wholeness.  Rayek had already begun thinking about this before the hunt, and he
devoted the next few days to it, pausing only to be present at the celebration
of Scouter and Tyleet’s Recognition.  He was startled at the affinity he felt
with the wolf chief when he announced at the feast that this might be the last
time they were all together.  Rayek’s impatience was temporarily appeased as he
glimpsed what it might cost Cutter to do what they both knew had to be done.
	That had been last night.  Now, as the shadows of evening began to lengthen
again, Rayek knew he had thought as far as he could on his own.  He needed
Timmain to help him, at least to confirm what he guessed might be the way to
restore the Palace.
	The wolves eyed him curiously as he approached their dens.  Timmain, as he
had hoped, was among them, sleeping with Cutter’s young cub curled against her
belly.  She opened her eyes as he drew near and rose, waving her white tail. 
The cub whimpered and woke, and she pushed him gently with her nose towards a
dry leaf, which he at once began to stalk.  Wolf, and yet not wolf, Timmain
seemed to understand what Rayek wanted.  She led him a little way from the pack
and sat down, fixing her wise, feral eyes on him.
	Rayek knelt and laid his hand against her muzzle.  “High One,” he said.
	She made a small sound, almost a whine, and touched his hand with her
tongue. 
	He smiled a little.  “You understand, Timmain.  You know the Palace is
lost-- shattered-- and that the humans have found the pieces.”
	Another soft whine.  Her eyes seemed to gaze into his heart.
	“Timmain.”  He swallowed.  “I must know.  How do we restore the Palace?
It . . . It must be possible.  I know it.”
	He felt a stirring in his mind.  She was sending.  But though he tried with
all his strength to receive it, her mind’s rhythm was strange to him.  “High One,
please . . . I don’t . . .” he whispered.  “Can you try again?”
	Instead, she rose and trotted away.  But when he moved to follow her, she
turned to face him, her ears well forward, head and tail high, and growled slightly. 
Her meaning was clear:  Stay here.  He sat down, and she left.  He waited.
	She was back a short time later, with Skywise following her.  He stopped
short when he saw Rayek.  “What’s this about?” he asked.
	Rayek sighed as he rose.  Habits of the nine eights times eight years of
his life could not be entirely broken in just the two eights since he had left the
Sun Village.  It was still difficult to ask for help.  Especially as there had
never been love lost between himself and the wolf chief’s closest companion.  He
gathered himself together.
	“Stargazer.  Timmain knows what I at all costs must know-- how to make the
Palace whole.  She has tried to send to me, but--”
	Skywise nodded, mercifully cutting Rayek off from having to ask further.
His manner was open and friendly: most likely, Rayek thought, because of what had
taken place in the troll caverns.
	“I’ll see what I can do.”  Skywise crouched in front of Timmain, gazing into
her eyes.  “Can you tell us, Timmain?”
	The two of them were still as snow-covered woods for an endless moment.
Rayek shifted his feet, feeling unaccountably like an intruder.  Then Skywise turned
to him with a sigh.
	“She says-- and I don’t know if you will be able to make sense of this; I
can’t-- she says, ‘In the center, many may become one.’  Does that mean anything
to you?”
	A slow smile spread itself across Rayek’s face.  “Ye-es.  Yes, it tells me
my guess was correct!  Thank you, High One!”
	He barely remembered to thank Skywise as well before he hurried away, his
heart full of triumph, his mind full of plans.  He did not see Timmain paw at Skywise,
nor hear Skywise laugh ruefully in response.  “I know, Timmain.  He’s still as
hasty as ever.”
	It simply did not occur to Rayek to have Skywise ask Timmain if there were
anything else he should know.  And perhaps she could not have made it clear, even 
if he had.

	The greater moon moved through one cycle, and then another.  Rayek worked on
honing his powers to the highest intensity possible without the presence of the
Palace. He hunted from time to time, sometimes with Venka and Zhantee, sometimes
alone.  He brought the largest part of most of his kills to the Wolfriders and
ate what was left with Ekuar in their cave.  In return he found gifts from time
to time laid at his door:  a basket of nuts, a freshly-killed rabbit, a branchful of
dreamberries.  These last were eaten mostly by Ekuar:  Rayek disliked the sensation
they gave him of loss of control.  And he really did not need them:  memories were
hardly elusive to him.  He wished, rather, that they would not come so very frequently.
	Memories of his years in the Palace, of Winnowill, of Leetah long ago.
Memories of things he regretted now, things he had come to understand about himself in
those six years when, with no magic, he had had little to do but think.
	But most of all he found himself worrying about the Scroll of Colors.  Had the
humans found it in the wreckage of the Palace?  Had it, too, been broken in pieces, or
were they-- and Winnowill-- even now trying to learn how to use it?
	Rayek sat one evening outside the cave, thinking about it.  He had begun once
again to grow impatient and restless as time passed and the wolf chief still
made no move.  What was Cutter thinking?  What was he doing?  How long was it
going to take him to--
	His thoughts were cut short by an open sending.  Rayek knew that mental touch,
almost as no other-- and not by his own choice.
	**Rayek.  Ekuar.  Will you come to council?  This concerns you as much as the
rest of us.**  There was no command in the words, but as always, there came that
sense that the wolf chief expected to be treated as the one in command.  Rayek
remembered Savah seeming amused by that unconscious air of Cutter’s, even the
first time Rayek had seen them together.  Now it was eight eights of eight times
stronger.
	But perhaps the wolf chief was finally ready to make a move.
	The rock cave behind him opened, and Ekuar emerged.  He looked at Rayek
questioningly, and at Rayek’s nod, he returned the sending:  **We’re coming,
young chief.**
	The Wolfriders were gathered under the intertwined trees which held their
dens.  Rayek and Ekuar quietly joined the gathering and Cutter nodded, acknowledging
their presence.  He was seated on a rock slightly above the others, with Ember
on one side, Skywise and Leetah on the other.  Ember’s face wore a kind of
astonished triumph that puzzled Rayek.
	Then Cutter spoke.  “It’s been our law, since we came here, never to show
ourselves to the Tall Ones.  But now they have most of the pieces of the Palace. 
And Rayek’s certain Winnowill is with them, too.”
	There were murmurs from the tribe.  Cutter took a deep breath.
	“That’s why it’s time to make an exception to the rule.  Ember thinks it’s
important to learn their language.  I agree.”
	Ember’s face flushed with pleasure.   Rayek felt bewildered and angry.  After
all this time, this was all they were going to do?
	The wolf chief continued.  “Tyleet has made contact with a gentle woodcutter
and his mate.  She’ll learn their words and teach them to us.  Everyone who can
should try to learn.”
	Rayek was on his feet, almost without his own volition.  Bitterness was rising
in his throat, threatening to choke him.  He almost spat out his words.  “So. 
For all these cycles of the greater moon  I have waited.  I have kept your law,
at what cost you cannot imagine.  And now it seems it can be easily broken, upon
your whim!”
	Cutter sprang to his feet, fists clenched, eyes blazing.  “My whim?!” he
roared. Rayek glared back.
	There was an intense silence, broken only by a small, strangled sound Tyleet
made at the back of her throat.
	Then Ember stood up.  She glared at Rayek as fiercely as her father.  “It
wasn’t a whim.  We need to know the humans’ speech, so we can find out what they’re
planning.  And maybe we don’t know what it’s cost you to keep our law, but you
don’t know what it’s cost him to change it!”
	Rayek was startled.  The child was no longer a child.  Cutter was staring at
her with gratified amazement and pride.  A doubt shook Rayek:  could this change to
their law have been Ember’s idea, and not Cutter’s?
	The wolf chief seemed to have lost his anger as quickly as it had erupted.
He stepped down from the rock and approached Rayek, smiling slightly.
	“We’re doing this for the Palace, Rayek.  But we won’t get it back if we lose
our heads and spring at it.”  He held Rayek‘s eyes with his own.  “And as to
what it’s cost you, you’re wrong.  I can imagine.”
	His eyes swept the rest of the gathering.  “Anyone else have something to
say?”
	Strongbow responded.  **The less contact we have with humans, to do this,
the better.**  His manner was as if he were covering having received a shock.  Rayek
began to wonder if anyone besides Cutter, Tyleet and Ember had known about this.
	“You’re right, Strongbow,” Cutter said.  “Only Tyleet.  And only these two
humans.  Agreed?”
	Strongbow inclined his head slightly.
	“Harumph!  Agreed, lad,” said Treestump, looking shrewdly at Tyleet, who met
his eyes steadily but self-consciously.
	“Please be careful, daughter,” Redlance said to her.
	“You’ve got a cub to think about,” added Nightfall.
	“I know, Mother.”  Tyleet smiled.  “Believe me, I know.”  Her eyes moved to
Scouter, who chuckled and put an arm around her.
	“Tyleet will start showing us what she’s learned so far, at sunrise,” said
Cutter.  “That way, both night-sleepers and day-sleepers can be there.”  His
eyes moved to Ekuar, and then again to Rayek.
	Rayek nodded.  “Very well, then.  At sunrise.”  He turned and glided away.
His mind was churning, and though it was the time when he usually sought sleep, he
knew that tonight it would be impossible.
	After a short while he alighted on a boulder which jutted out of a hill
overlooking the humans’ huge village.  The lights that shone from their windows
and lanterns turned their dwelling places into a curtain flung over the land,
each light a bead in that curtain, glinting under the far-off stars.
	Rayek did not hear Venka’s step when after a little time she slipped up and
sat down beside him, but he turned to her without surprise.  “It is there, Venka.” 
He flung out his arm toward the glowing beads of light below.  “The Palace.  We
must find all the pieces.  We must get it back.”
	She laid a hand on his arm, her cool eyes gentle under the moons.  “We will,
Father.  Soon.”
	Rayek looked away from her again, this time down at his hands, lying quiet
but tense in his lap.  “Venka . . . you know the Wolfriders.  What happened, just
now?  How did you see it?”
	Venka smiled.  “Tyleet has always been one to act with the best of motives,
but not always with the tribe.  She adopted an abandoned human cub once, did you
know?”
	“I did not know.”  Rayek thought about it and chuckled a little.  “The
others would not have liked that.”
	“They did not know what to think, at first.  But they came to accept the
child. I would guess that it is like that, now.  Tyleet has acted on her own.
Cutter, with Ember’s encouragement, has chosen to support Tyleet’s actions.”
	“And the elders--?”
	“Knew nothing of it.  Until tonight.”
	Rayek took a breath.  “That is what I guessed.”  He looked at her
curiously. “What will they do now?”
	“Do?”  Venka shook her head.  “They will do as he says.  The chief’s word
is final, unless someone challenges his leadership.  And no one did.”
	Rayek considered.  “You mean that Tyleet broke the tribe’s most solemn
law, without Cutter’s or the elders’ knowledge, and he not only supported it, but
treated it as his own decision?  Why?”
	Venka smiled again.  “Well, other than the fact that learning the humans’
language is actually a very good idea-- as Ember probably told him-- no one has
ever been able to tell Tyleet ‘No.’  As a cub, she made up for the loss of
Cutter’s children, you see.”
	“I see,” Rayek said.  “And if he had not done this, she would have had to
be disciplined.  Is it not so?”
	“It is so, Father.”  Venka was very serious now.  “Running alone is a
danger to the tribe.  By supporting Tyleet, by making her action his own, Cutter
takes full responsibility if anything goes wrong.”
	“And he could have had his leadership challenged over this?”
	Venka nodded.  “Or still could, if something goes wrong.  It is unlikely,
but such a thing has happened before.”
	Rayek also nodded, slowly.  “You have given me much to think on, daughter.”
	“And you need time, now, to think?”  She smilingly touched his cheek.
“Very well, then, Father.”
	She rose gracefully and left.  Rayek remained where he was, staring at the
bright, beaded curtain below that mirrored the even brighter one in the night
sky above.  It made his thoughts turn to Sorrow’s End, not so long ago.  Not, at
least, to him.
	It had been shock, not cowardice or pettiness, that had made him back away
and leave Cutter on the Bridge of Destiny after the young barbarian had saved his
life.  Rayek’s complacent knowledge that the other was an inferior, a savage who
could not even understand the worth of the prize he was competing for, had been
shaken into rubble.  He had been bested by this creature, and he could not bear
it.  So he had fled, and the thing he had fled from was the inescapable conclusion
that the Wolfrider was, indeed, worthy of Leetah.
	In the silence of the desert, he had found that fleeing had done no good.
He had to face the fact that everything he had built his life on to that point had
been in error.  Leetah was not his by right, destined to be his lifemate.  He
was not the only one, or even the best one, who could protect Sorrow’s End. 
Rayek had writhed inside at the thought of what everyone must think of him after
his defeat and ignominious retreat.  He knew, to the depths of his soul, what it
was to be misunderstood.
	Then he had come to the troll caves and had found Ekuar, and nothing had
ever been the same again.  How small his own pain had seemed in the face of such
suffering!  How clear it became that inner strength was not to be judged by
outward appearance!
	Ekuar had restored to Rayek his drive for growth and achievement, but he
had done so much more. Ekuar had taught him to look beyond himself, to seek the
greater good for all elves.  Much as he loved Leetah, Rayek was able, when he
met her again, to let her love Cutter, because his focus now was on something
larger.  Something that was both fulfilled in and begun by the gaining of the
Palace of the High Ones.
	He had begun to dream of the restoration of all elves to the power and
beauty that had once been theirs.
	It was while learning from Timmain that he had first wished there were
some way to undo the mistake that had resulted in the entrapment of his people on
this world which had sapped their magic, diminished their bodies and subjected
them to such oppression as Ekuar had endured at the hands of the trolls.  Ekuar
had told Rayek that in bitterness lay madness, and seemed to bear Picknose and his
people no ill will, but Rayek found it much harder to forgive.  He could not
endure the thought of the trolls ever getting their hands on Ekuar again.
	Gradually, he had become more and more obsessed with his dream, until
almost every thought was focused on regaining some part of the High Ones’ original
glory.  He was tempered in this by desire for a child, the child Kahvi would
bear, that he knew in his heart to be his.  When she had told him the child was
dead, in bitter anger he had left for Blue Mountain, throwing himself deeper
into his vision, determined to gain the means to make the Palace fly.
	And had met Winnowill.
	How could he describe now, even to himself, what that first meeting had
been?  Half unconsciously he took flight, gliding  above the trees through the
darkness as he thought about her.
	He had thought at first it was Recognition, so immediate was the communion
of their souls.  And though she had tricked him, used him, he could not believe all
of it had been a show.  Her spirit, like his, had seen and known its twin.
	What was she doing now?  He ached still for her, for the beauty she had used
then as a trap for him, but more for the worth he could still see and others
could not.  She, too, was misunderstood.
	Rayek became aware he was close to the human habitations, drawn unintention-
ally nearer to where he knew Winnowill was.  It came to him that he was very near
the place he had dropped Leetah when she had pain-sent to him, on that night he had
taken the Palace forward in time.
	With that knowledge came a sudden sense of shame, that he had been so caught
up in his plans, his overweening vision, that it had never occurred to him to see
what had happened to her when he dropped her.  She had fallen among the humans,
he knew now, had broken her leg, and things might have turned out very badly had
Skywise not followed and rescued her.
	Rayek felt a sudden urge to find out now what he should have then:  what
manner of place it was that Leetah had found herself in, when she was dropped so
suddenly.  He would keep the Wolfriders’ law:  the humans would remain unaware
of him, but he must know.
	The dwellings were large, formed of roughly straight lines, seeming crude
to eyes accustomed to the gentle curves of Sun Village huts or the perfection of
the Palace’s symmetry.  It was a warm night for the season, and many of the
windows were open.  Rayek knew from Leetah’s descriptions what he was looking
for:  a girl somewhat older than Ember (which would make her by now almost
grown), a plump, worried-looking mother, a huge, bearded man.
	The first house he looked in held a sleeping young couple and three
children. But at the second place, Rayek was certain he had found them.
	He knew little of the habits of humans (though the smell of the place made
him wrinkle his nose), but he was fairly certain most of them should be asleep by
now.  These were not.  The enormous male seemed intoxicated on some sort of
wine.  He was bellowing at the woman, who cowered away from him, and at the
girl, who stared silently, sullenly at her father.
	In the ordinary way, it would not have mattered to Rayek how humans treated
each other.  But this was the child Leetah had cared enough about to heal, and the
woman who had given her the dress, in the remnants of which she still looked so
lovely.  Rayek caught in his breath as the man lifted a slab of a hand and
struck the woman full in the face, then turned on the child, this time clenching
the hand into a fist.
	Cold fury flooded him.  Had Leetah healed this girl only for her to be 
destroyed by her father?  By the High Ones, he would stop this!  At least he would
do enough that, High Ones willing, the brute of a man would leave both the females
in peace for a while.
	But he must not be seen.  He dropped silently from the tree from which he
had gazed through the open window.  Behind him a near-wolf growled, and he turned
and paralyzed it with a single, piercing glance.
	Rayek glided up beneath the window sill.  The male loomed over the child,
berating her in words Rayek could not understand.  He lifted the fist for a
blow.
	And yelled as a blast of power struck his hand, sending him staggering off
balance.  The girl and the woman cried out in shock.  The man swung towards the
window where the blast had come from, uttering what Rayek supposed were curses.
	Motioning the females to stay back, the male picked up a long-handled axe
and approached the window where Rayek waited in the shadows.  As the brute looked
over the edge of the sill, Rayek sent him into a trance, just as he had the
near-wolf, only much deeper.  It was doubtful the man would wake before morning. 
When he did, he would have no idea what had happened to him.
	The girl and her mother exclaimed to one another as the man froze, his axe
clattering to the floor.  They called to him, and when he did not respond, came
over and touched him gingerly, then shook him.  Rayek, back in the tree,
chuckled slightly.  He had given them at least one night’s peace.
	The two females half dragged, half supported the male away from the window
and towards what was probably a sleeping room.  Almost immediately afterwards, the
door opened and the girl slipped out.
	She cried out at the sight of the entranced near-wolf, but as she laid a
hand on its head it awoke and looked around wildly, as if trying to find what it had
been about to bark at.  The girl laughed softly.  She raised her clasped hands
to the sky, then to the courtyard trees, including the one Rayek was sitting in. 
Thankfulness was plain in her tone, though he was certain she could not see him.
	When she returned to her home, Rayek left the tree and began to fly slowly
back towards the Holt.
	He had, he supposed, been as intoxicated as that human, when he drove the
Go-Backs away from the Palace and destroyed their lodge.  Drunk on more power
than he had ever imagined coursing through his veins, and near madness from
carrying the many spirits whose power it was, he had lashed out in grief and
rage that Kahvi, whom he had trusted, had lost first his newborn child and then
his ancient friend and guide.
	Rayek wished there had been someone to stop him, then, before he had nearly
destroyed his own daughter.  Wished he had listened to his heart when it told
him she was still alive, instead of to her lying mother.
	He thought of how different the wolf chief’s fatherhood was from what he had
just seen.  To yield to his daughter when she was wiser than he, though she had
but two eights of years.  To risk challenge protecting his almost-daughter,
Tyleet, from certain censure.  Cutter’s outward manner would always rankle, but
Rayek had to admit he had seen again that heart which had revealed itself to him
so overwhelmingly in that lock-send in the troll caverns.
	He also had to admit that learning the human language was, indeed, a very
good idea. Rayek smiled a little to himself.  He would return to the Wolfriders and
let Tyleet teach him.

	Rayek sat on a rock in the late afternoon sun.  The first pale flowers of
new green showed here and there amidst melting patches of the last snows of white
cold.  It was the warmest part of the day, and the peace of the place eased his
heart a little.
	He had learned the human tongue, he felt, tolerably well.  He was also
aware that the wolf chief had been drilling his daughter in the ways of leadership. 
Certain that this had some bearing on the action that must soon be taken, he had
been waiting, continuing nevertheless to feel forced to an unnatural patience. 
And he had added to his worry about Winnowill, a new worry about Savah, so far
away.
	From time to time since the Palace shattered she had projected herself to
them through her little piece of the Palace, seeming increasingly sad.  At first
Rayek had attributed it to grief for the Palace, or to loneliness for Suntop,
who had gone with Dart and some others on that quest which Rayek had wanted so
badly he had risked leaving the Palace unguarded while settling matters with
Cutter.
	Savah had avoided answering questions, stating that the Wolfriders, Rayek
and Ekuar had enough troubles of their own to think of.  But lately she had ceased
appearing at all, and Rayek felt sure something was very wrong.  The thought
that anything could happen to her, or to Sorrow’s End, was like feeling the
ground crumble under his feet.
	Coupled with this was his increasing agitation about the Scroll of Colors.
If Winnowill had it, if she learned how to use it, they were all in very grave
danger.  It seemed to him that he was the only one who fully appreciated this.
	He did not admit to himself that he was also missing Winnowill terribly;
even entranced and unresponsive in the Palace, she had still been near.   Perhaps it
was this more than anything else that precipitated his move now.
	He made himself as comfortable as he could, resting his back against the
sun-warmed slab of rock that jutted up behind him.  Then he closed his eyes and
let himself drift away from his body.  He could not reach Savah unless she chose
to reach him, but Winnowill was within his range.
	He floated in darkness, further and further away from himself, searching for
her.  Then he sensed her presence and closed in, touched her mind lightly.
	Ouch!  She swatted him away as if he were a buzzing insect.  He hovered,
approached again, and again she rebuffed him.  He longed for her with everything
inside him, but it was not enough, it seemed, to call her spirit to him.  He
must wait, he decided, for a moment of weakness or lassitude, for her to let her
guard down.
	But it did not come.  He was reaching the end of his endurance and must soon
return to his body, but still he waited, desperate to touch her mind more closely,
to know whether or not she had the Scroll, whether or not she had thought of him at
all save in that moment of triumph when he had felt her so many moon cycles before.
	Someone was sending to him, shaking him.  It pulled him back into his body
with a terrible jerk, and he sat up, shivering with cold.  It was nearly full dark,
and Venka was staring into his face.  He was surrounded by Wolfriders.
	Angry Wolfriders.
	“Father!” said Venka.  “What have you done?”
	**He’s gone out of his body!** Strongbow sent furiously, glowering at Rayek. 
**And who could he have gone out to but the Black Snake?**
	Rayek rose to his feet, passing a hand across his forehead.  Cutter stepped
forward.  “Is this true, Rayek?”  His teeth were clenched; his voice grated out
the words.  “What does she know?  What have you told her?”
	“Nothing.  She would not let me near her.”  Rayek was still disoriented.
	“Hmmph!  Not for want of trying, I’ll reckon!”  Treestump folded his arms
and glared.  “You’ve put all of us in danger, Black Hair!”
	“Next time you’ll be showing her where the Holt is!” snapped Moonshade.
	“I told you, she learned nothing from me!  And will learn nothing to your
danger!” Rayek snapped back, beginning to recover himself.  “If you will not
believe me . . .”
	Cutter growled low in his throat.  Leetah stepped up from behind him, laying
a hand on Cutter’s arm.  “Why, Rayek?” she asked gently.  “Why did you do it?”
	Something in her voice made his misery rise into the back of his mouth in a
stinging lump.  He lowered his eyes.  “The Scroll of Colors,” he said in a low
voice.  “I wanted to know if she had it.  I wanted . . .”
	He raised his eyes, raw suffering on his face, and found himself looking
directly into Cutter’s.  Behind her father, Ember said flatly, “That’s not a
good enough reason.”
	“Excuse, you mean,” Skot said nastily.
	“It’s not an excuse!”  Rayek said desperately.  “If she learns to read the
Scroll of Colors--”
	“She doesn’t need the Scroll if she has a spy!” Scouter shouted.
	**Leave him alone.**  Cutter’s sending cut through the rising tumult of 
voices, stilling them instantly.  There was a silence.
	Then Cutter asked, his face and voice expressionless, “I take it you didn’t
find out if she has it?”
	Rayek shook his head.  He had seen his pain and loss mirrored for an instant
in the wolf chief’s eyes, and he could find no words.  He knew the other knew, more
than either of them could express, what this loneliness felt like.
	“Please don’t do it again, Rayek,” said Leetah softly.  “It is not worth the
risk.”
	Rayek bowed his head.
	“Let’s go,” said Cutter.  “There’s nothing more to do here.”
	As the others moved away, Venka took Rayek’s hand.  “I am glad she did you no
harm, Father.”
	Rayek smiled bitterly.  He supposed she could have tried.  If she had cared
enough.  “Was it you who found me?” he asked.
	“No, it was Pike and Skot,” said Venka.  “They came across you as they were
going fishing.  When they could not wake you, they sent for the others.”  She
gazed at him.  “I am sorry, Father.”
	“Sorry?”
	“About Winnowill.”
	He turned his head that she might not see the tears in his eyes.  “Venka, I
would be alone.  Please.”
	“You will not try to touch minds with her again after I go?”
	“I will not.”
	Venka squeezed his hand and slipped away.  Rayek once again lifted himself
above the darkened trees and began to glide.
	But this time he headed for the open sea.
	It was Winnowill, he knew, who had inflamed his vision to the point where
it took precedence over everything else.  He had at first wanted to win the hearts
of all the tribes to his cause, to turn them to the larger purpose of restoring
themselves to lost glory.  But after what Winnowill had shown him in their first
meeting, he had increasingly come to believe that he knew better than anyone
else what was best for all elf-kind.  He had felt his vision high enough to
justify bending all to its service.  Even those it had been meant to serve.
	He had not admitted to this change in himself.  But then he had conceived
the idea that there was an easy way.  Rather than trying to recover from what had
happened so many ages ago, they could simply make it not have happened at all. 
It was so simple, so profound, that it completely baffled him why Cutter could
not see its perfection.  And again Winnowill had been there to help him blind
himself to the flaws in his plan.  With her sendings caressing his mind, he had
yielded to the irresistible temptation to act before the wolf chief could try to
stop him.  And yes, in the back of his mind had been the thought that once
Leetah met the High Ones, her objections would cease.  That she would see then
the beauty of his vision and be restored to him once and for all.
	Instead, one by one he had lost those he wanted most to be with him.  And
when Ekuar had left him of his own free will, Rayek’s eyes had opened at last.
Never again would he follow a dream to the destruction of the real.  Never again
would he forget, in serving all elves, that each elf had a face.
	Why, then, could he not let go of Winnowill?  She had bent everyone, even
him, to her purpose so long she had almost lost sight of the purpose in view of the
power she could wield.  Had she ever loved him?  He did not know.  All he knew
was that he could not let go of her.  And so he glided on over the Vastdeep
Water, fleeing the thought of the rejection she had dealt him.
	The moons made a glinting path across the surging waters.  It was warmer than
he had expected in a new green so young, and there was very little wind.  He ceased
thinking and simply floated aimlessly above the waves, feeling oddly as if he
were waiting for something.
	Something that had been waiting for him.
	It surfaced behind him with a sudden squelching sound, and he turned in
amazement.  A vast, fist-shaped thing covered in luminescent hard shell rose
before him.  Patterned indentations all over it gave the sickening impression of
many blind, screaming faces; the dark spots where the eyes should be in each
pattern were the size and shape of elves’ eyes.  The creature rolled, and myriad
short, waving tentacles appeared at its bottom, all reaching towards Rayek. 
There was a terrible, rotting-flesh stench.
	Rayek gasped and retched, lifting himself up and away from it.  But his
magic had become suddenly weak, and he felt exhausted.  It was all he could do to
keep himself moving out of its way.
	Then pain exploded in his mind.  Black sending.  Rayek clutched his head as
waves of despair washed over him.  He deserved death.  Cutter should have killed
him when he had the chance, or someone else should have.  If only he could die
now.  Death would be so welcome, so right, putting an end to this obscenity that
was his life.
	With an enormous effort, Rayek pulled himself higher into the air, further
away from the thing.  As its tentacles sank beneath the water again, his head
cleared a little, and he thought, almost in a panic, Winnowill made this.  But why
make a sea creature so clearly meant to destroy magic-using elves?  There are no
elves in the sea.
	It was pulling him towards it again.  Rayek gathered himself together and sent
a short blast of power at its shell.  The blast deflected harmlessly off, but in
response the monster rolled again, lifting its tentacles to him.  As another
wave of black sending hit him, Rayek steeled himself against the dark thoughts
it brought and blasted the creature with all the force he could muster, directly
into the center of the cluster of tentacles.
	It pulsed and glowed.  It was not damaged by the power; it was absorbing it! 
Rayek realized that the harder he fought the thing, the stronger it would grow,
and the weaker he would become.
	Once again he moved to escape.  Once again it dragged at him, draining his
magic, his strength, his very life.  Desperately Rayek wished he had thought to
arm himself before he left the Holt.  But would metal be of any use against that
shell?  Could it sink deep enough within the tentacles?  It mattered not, in any
case.  Rayek had no weapon, being accustomed to rely only on his magic.  And it
was his magic, giving power to this creature, that would kill him.
	**Give in,** it sent mindlessly, not in words but in feelings.  **Die.
Death is all.**
	Flightless, Rayek was in the water now, very close to the monster’s groping
tentacles.  He struggled weakly, gulping air and water.
	**Despair.  Despair.  Death comes now.**
	Venka, Rayek thought.  Daughter.  Such a short time we had together.  Ekuar. 
You taught me so much more even than you know.  How you will both grieve.
	And as he thought of them, somewhere inside he found a center of strength
that had nothing to do with his magic.  It seemed to have very little to do even with
himself.  It simply was.
	He wrapped himself around the thought of them, feeling the last of his power
slipping away.  And then, all at once, he knew what he must do.
	Rayek gave up.  Gave up every part of himself except that secret center where
he held his dearest to his heart.  He drew the despair, the annihilation, into
himself, let it flow through him.
	Then, as the tentacles touched him, began to pull him in, Rayek gathered and
focused the creature’s power as he had in times past focused the power of the
Palace.  He directed that power into an intense beam of its own death-wish,
straight into the monster’s heart.
	It gave a silent, mental shriek that felt as if it would shatter his mind.
Then with a gurgling sound it released him.  Its tentacles thrashed wildly as it
heaved and surged in the water.  Gasping, Rayek caught hold of the hard shell
and hung on with his last shreds of bodily strength.
	Then all was still.
	How long he lay there, sprawled across the top of the shell as it floated
lifelessly in the swell, he never knew.  Gradually he became aware that power
was seeping back into him:  the elfin power that had made the thing and caused
it to sustain itself on the life-force of other creatures, was leaving it now. 
Rayek pushed away the twisted magic and felt for traces of his own carefully
developed skill, pulled his own energies back into himself, and lay for a while
longer recovering his stunned senses.
	Then, shakily but with gathering strength, he took off across the Vastdeep
Water, back to where he knew his loved ones waited.

	Venka was on the shore when Rayek alighted wearily, just before dawn.  She
was more agitated than he had ever thought to see her, and came running towards him
with hardly a trace of her usual serenity.
	“Father!  I had given up sending--”
	“I know.”  He put both hands on her shoulders.  “I should not have gone so
far alone.  It nearly cost my life.  But all is well.”
	She gazed at him.  “All is certainly not well, with Ekuar weeping in his
cave, saying he could feel you dying!”
	“Ekuar!”  Immediately, Rayek sent to his mentor:  **Ekuar.  I am unharmed.**
	**B-Brownskin?  My son!**
	Rayek turned back to Venka.  “We must go to him.”
	“Yes, at once.”  Venka put an arm around him, supported him as he leaned weakly
against her.  Rayek lifted himself from the pull of the world enough for her to
more easily help him up the slope and into the woods.
	“Do any of the others know I have been gone?” he asked her.
	“What would have been the point?”  She gave him a hint of one of her cool
stares.  “I knew you had flown out over the Vastdeep.  No one could have tracked
you, and most of them were angry with you already.  Why did you do it, Father?”
	Rayek swallowed.  “I simply wanted to think. I-- I did not realize the
danger.”
	Venka shook her head at him, but spoke no further word.  They arrived at
Ekuar’s cave.  Before they could send, the rock wall split open and Ekuar tumbled out
into Rayek’s arms.
	Rayek did not mind, this time, that Venka saw his tears.
	Later, dry, warmed and fed, he told the two of them what had happened.  They
were shocked and appalled at it, but like him, could make no sense of the why of
such a creature.
	“Unless there truly could be elves in the sea,” Venka said doubtfully.  “But
even if that were possible, we could not go looking for them without the
Palace.”
	“All we can think about now is the Palace,” Rayek agreed.  “The time grows
short.”
	“And you need rest, Father,” Venka said.  “Sleep now.  Please.”
	Rayek smiled.  “I promise, daughter.”
	She rose, laid her hand a moment on his cheek, and passed out through the
opening Ekuar made for her.
	Rayek lay back against the furs, feeling quietly triumphant.  Whatever the
reason for the monster’s being, it was now dead.  And he had thought for a while
the death was going to be his.
	“Ekuar,” he said sleepily, “I am . . . sorry. . . I put you through this.”
	The old one sighed.  “It doesn’t matter now, dear one.  I seem to be getting
used to fearing for your life.”
	Ekuar’s eyes were twinkling, and Rayek laughed.  “Actually, the two battles
were very similar.  In both of them, the way to prevail was not by winning.”
	Ekuar chuckled.  “And you’re not going to sleep until you’ve told me how
fighting the young chief was like fighting a monster.”
	Rayek stared up at the cave roof.  “Any monster in him is of my creation,
Ekuar.”  He paused, then asked seriously, “Ekuar, how much do you pay attention
to time passing?”
	Ekuar blinked.  “You know this old head of mine.  Sometimes it takes a thing
like this to make me pay attention to anything at all.”
	Rayek swallowed.  “ I felt it, Ekuar.  When he lock-sent to me, I saw time as
a mortal sees it.  Like a thing eating at you, bit by bit, until in the end it
kills you.  I felt as though a pit had opened at my feet.  It has been very hard
ever since to stop seeing time that way.”
	Ekuar stared at him.  Are you saying time is like that, to a Wolfrider?”
	Rayek shook his head.  “No.  They live in each moment as if it were the only
one that ever was or ever will be.  But time is like that, now, to Cutter.  That is
what I did to him.”
	“Son . . .” said Ekuar.
	“No, you must listen,” said Rayek, sitting up and taking him by the arm.  “I
went into that fight knowing it was not ultimately about who won.  One thing I
had finally learned is that it is only the deed accomplished that matters, not
any glory that comes to the doer.  I had planned to call for healing myself,
once the goal was accomplished.  But when I saw what he showed me, I knew that
it was going to be much, much more difficult than I thought.  So I forgot
everything else but his need.”
	Ekuar said nothing.  Rayek released his arm, took a deep breath.   “It was
the same thing he had done for me on the Bridge of Destiny.  When I saved his life
in the Frozen Mountains, I had not yet paid the full debt, for I had not risked
my own.”
	He sighed heavily.  “When Leetah told me I did not know how to love, I did
not at first understand.  I knew I loved her, knew especially that I loved you, old
friend.”
	Ekuar smiled.
	Rayek continued.  “What I did not know is that love, at its highest, is not
something you feel, it is something you do.  Cutter felt no love for me on the
Bridge of Destiny.  I felt no love for him in the troll caverns.  But there
comes a time when love simply gives all.  Feeling much, or feeling little, it
abandons itself to the need of the other.  Do you understand, Ekuar?”
	Ekuar smiled again.
	Rayek nodded.  “I thought you would.  So when I met that creature of 
Winnowill’s making tonight, and realized using my magic against it would kill me, I
was ready for what I had to do.  I already knew that sometimes the way to win is by
losing.”
	Rayek lay back on the furs again.  He was silent for a long moment.  Then he
turned his face to Ekuar once again, smiling a very little.  “Someday, old
friend, I will do this for Winnowill.  High Ones willing, no matter what it
costs me, I will show her what love is!”
	And Ekuar smiled.

The End