Chapter Twelve The Village That Chooses Its Own #2
The shine in the hag’s eyes focused on Saeldian. “What can you spare to give me for the answer?”
People thought the Feywild was a place of magic and awe and delicious risk. Saeldian had thought that too, until they found they couldn’t meet anyone who didn’t stick their hand out expecting to be paid for telling the time. “I’m not even sure I could give you the holes in my pockets, ma’am—”
“Mistress.”
“Mistress,” Saeldian replied with a nod. “I will withdraw the question, by your leave.”
“Ha! You’ve made me laugh,” the Brewmistress said. “Payment enough. I do know it.”
Saeldian listened attentively, but the Brewmistress said nothing more.
Finally, Saeldian said, “I imagine your knowledge of the Feywild is quite extensive. I’m glad to know it is real.”
“Oh, you are fun, you grumpy thing,” the Brewmistress said. “I will consider the question further. Step aside. I see someone to welcome.”
Dismissed, Saeldian stepped off the path.
The Brewmistress ambled to the cottage where Kell settled beside his father, leaning on him as the news of his coming interrupted the music from the platform above.
Some people floated down on more of those platforms that connected house-trees to the upper level; others flew.
But the Brewmistress ignored all of them to walk up to Lorzok and thrust the clay cup into his hands, and when he had it, she uncorked her bottle and poured him a cup.
Lorzok accepted it with a slow, ceremonial nod. He drank, first one tasting sip, and then the whole pint in long swallows.
“I remembered a meadow,” Lorzok said after he’d let out a satisfied sigh.
“Perhaps someone thought to grow barley there once, but it was wild and green as any grass. Wild roses spread out on the ground. Flowers of all kinds, the sort that bees like to gossip with as they gather nectar for cold days. Yarrow?”
The hag nodded.
“Clover,” Lorzok said. “Delicious. It tastes like an invitation to have more, but it’ll sneak up on you if you do.”
“More, then?”
Lorzok held out his cup. “Perhaps a little?”
The Brewmistress laughed and poured some more. “Welcome, Seeker. I felt it when you came in.”
Lorzok bowed his head. “I enjoyed your beer and your welcome very much. I am glad to have found Kell’s family, but we search for Hearthaven’s Repose. Do you know it?”
The Brewmistress nodded. “I know Hearthaven. You’ll need a guide.”
Saeldian smothered an outraged noise. That’s what they had asked! The Brewmistress answered him but not them?
The Brewmistress swept her hand to welcome Lorzok—and his friends—to the Village That Chooses Its Own. “But before you can find it, you need a good meal, a good bed, and a song or two. You’re no good to anyone tired. Quickwit!”
Something flew past Saeldian’s ear so fast it made them flinch. “I know, I know, I know exactly where they go! I will help them, one, two, three, four—that’s four! And then I’ll help them again, and that’s eight more!”
A tiny pixie hovered between Lorzok and the Brewmistress. “Let me! Let me! Four favors, then eight, a dozen more would be great! Anything you need, Quickwit lends his help with speed!”
“That’s very helpful,” Saeldian said, “but are your favors freely given?”
“Nine hundred fifty-six! No strings attached, I swear, no tricks! Please come this way! It’s been such a day!”
Saeldian glanced at Lorzok. “Do they have to rhyme?”
“All the time.”
“Don’t you start.”
Lorzok laughed and held out his hand for Saeldian’s pack. “Come on.”
Lorzok came back to Saeldian’s cabin a few minutes after they had closed the door, and he was so jolly about going upstairs where the music had resumed that Saeldian agreed just to keep from fighting about it. But only long enough for people to get bored of them so they could slip away.
The Village That Chooses Its Own was a forest. Tall, straight-trunked trees grew up past openings in an upper floor that rested on branches that wound and wove to support it, just like the little houses cradled closer to the ground.
They all had platforms like these, and wide, carefully laid stone paths branched out to each private house.
Lorzok stood on the little platform, and when Saeldian joined him, he said, “Up.”
The platform rose, smooth and silent. It floated, like the wizard Tenser’s spell, but powerful enough to bear much more weight. The music and laughter were louder here. Saeldian looked up and gasped.
The trees that grew past the openings shaped into this floor soared over Saeldian’s head.
Sunlight passed through the fingertips of their branches, which were arched to brush leaves against their neighbors.
Suspended from the branches were chimes, feathers, light globes, and charms that Saeldian would bet gold were charged with spells.
It was rustic, compared to Osalor’s perfect glass house.
But it was beautiful and comfortable, and the air felt happy.
Lorzok hummed with the music and led the way to a party that had started without them.
Musicians gathered around a table played dance music.
People lounged in pendant chairs reading or talking.
Jubilee waved and kept on staring at a timed lanceboard game against a person who looked like a frog.
Strangers. Jubilee there, Verandil playing a long wooden flute, and then strangers. Some faces were curious. But those two dryads eyed them and pointedly turned away.
Kell wasn’t in view. He was probably still downstairs, surrounded by people who wanted to hug him, touch his face to be sure he was real, and hug him again.
He was home, surrounded by love, and he wouldn’t even be here if it hadn’t been for Saeldian’s help.
But nobody here cared about that. They’d picked sides—Kell’s side, of course.
A thump startled Saeldian, and they realized they’d been staring at the party from its farthest corner. Lorzok smiled an apology for startling them. “Even inside a domain, it’s best not to let your anger run away from you.”
Saeldian watched Jubilee play lanceboard with the frog-person instead. “I’m not angry.”
“All right,” Lorzok said agreeably. “Then what are you?”
“Fine. I’m fine.”
Lorzok waited.
Saeldian sighed. “It doesn’t matter how I feel.”
“Believing that is very dangerous. Think of it this way. In a few days, the job will be done. You’ll go back to Waterdeep with enough gold to help the Righthoofs—and to return the clothing we borrowed, of course—and you will never see me again. I’m the safest person to confide in.”
“Why do you care?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I’m the grifter,” Saeldian said. “I never tell the truth unless it’s the most useful thing to say. I can’t be trusted, no matter what I do.”
“That is a very lonely way to feel,” Lorzok said. “But is it true?”
This was the part where Saeldian was supposed to say that it wasn’t.
“It’s true,” Saeldian said. “If I’m being honest, I have to admit that it’s true. You can’t trust me. No matter what I do. No one can.”
“Jubilee trusts you.”
Saeldian had to look away. “I know.”
Lorzok sighed. “I want to hug you.”
“Why?”
“Because you need one.”
“And it’ll fix me?”
“No,” Lorzok said. “But you still need one.”
Saeldian sighed. “Fine.”
Lorzok was so big. His hug wrapped all the way around Saeldian so their face pressed against his chest. Saeldian’s hands didn’t meet behind his back. But he was warm and strong, and no one would see that they held on tight. No one would see Saeldian need this more than anything.
But it wasn’t something Saeldian could have, and so they stepped back. “We need to get moving. Every minute is another minute that archfey might discover that their spell gem is missing. Kell said we could get help here.”
“You have a point about the need for swiftness,” Lorzok said. “But you—do you always keep yourself aloof like this?”
“It’s the Village That Chooses Its Own, Lorzok.” Saeldian looked up into Lorzok’s concerned face. “I read the mood of people and places every day. I know what this place thinks of me.”
Lorzok sighed. “You are not bad, Saeldian.”
“I know you believe that.”
“I think it’s easier for you if you don’t believe it.” Lorzok assessed the party one more time and turned back to the platform that carried them up. “Come down to the cookhouse and eat.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You haven’t eaten in hours, so you will eat even if you don’t want to.”
Saeldian huffed. “Fine.”
“It’s not a rest day, so people take turns fixing the meal. Sizzling noodles, I’m told, with fire-spice sauce, vegetables, and an egg.”
It was an escape from the unfriendly crowd. Saeldian couldn’t thank him. “They have noodles in the Feywild?”
“Everywhere in Faer?n, you can find three things: noodles, bread, and beer. Why would the Feywild be any different?”
Hard boots—no, hooves—clattered behind them. “Hold on!” Verandil clapped a hand on Saeldian’s shoulder. “You can’t run away like that. How will I introduce everyone to the person who brought Kell back to us?”
“Saeldian hasn’t eaten yet today,” Lorzok said.
“Oh, that won’t do.” Verandil offered a crooked elbow for Saeldian to take. “You can eat, and I’ll think about how to repay you.”
“For what?”
“Getting Kell here.”
“He would have done it himself.”
“Not the way I heard it,” Verandil said. “You have no idea what you’ve done, have you?”
“I—” Didn’t do anything? That wasn’t true. “I don’t. No idea at all.”
They followed Verandil to another platform like the one that had brought Lorzok and Saeldian up to this level, and the satyr answered as it sank gently toward the ground.
“Kell was lost. We couldn’t find him. We had tried, but finding was Essanderon’s gift, and he fell in the battle.
If I hadn’t been out in Eightbridge where you could find me, you would have had little chance in finding the village. The Brewmistress keeps it sealed away.”
“But he could have found you. When you were in Eightbridge again.”
“I go once a tenday, and you don’t have a tenday’s worth of time, do you?”