Close Enough to Touch

A FTER OUR SHADOW-GATHERING EXPEDITION, I asked more pointed questions about Felurian’s magic. Most of her answers continued to be hopelessly matter-of-fact. How do you take hold of a shadow? She motioned with one hand, as if reaching for a piece of fruit. That was how, apparently.

Other answers were nearly incomprehensible, filled with Fae words I didn’t understand. When she tried to describe those terms, our conversations became hopeless rhetorical tangles. At times I felt like I’d found myself a quieter, more attractive version of Elodin.

Still, I learned a few scraps. What she was doing with the shadow was called grammarie. When I asked, she said it was “the art of making things be.” This was distinct from glamourie, which was “the art of making things seem.”

I also learned that there aren’t directions of the usual sort in the Fae. Your trifoil compass is useless as a tin codpiece there. North does not exist. And when the sky is endless twilight, you cannot watch the sun rise in the east.

But if you look closely at the sky, one piece of the horizon will be a shade brighter, in the opposite direction a shade darker. If you walk toward the brighter horizon, eventually it will become daytime. The other way leads to darker night. If you keep walking in one direction long enough, you will eventually see a whole “day” pass and end up in the same place you began. That’s the theory, at any rate.

Felurian described those two points of the Fae compass as Day and Night. The other two points she referred to at different times as Dark and Light, Summer and Winter, or Forward and Backward. Once she even referred to them as Grimward and Grinning, but something about the way she said it made me suspect it was a joke.

* * *

I have a good memory. That, perhaps more than anything else, sits in the center of what I am. It is the talent upon which so many of my other skills depend.

I can only guess how I came by my memory. My early stage training, perhaps. The games my parents used to help me remember my lines. Perhaps it was the mental exercises Abenthy taught me to prepare me for the University.

Wherever it came from, my memory has always served me well. Sometimes it works much better than I’d like.

That said, my memory is strangely patchy when I think of my time in the Fae. My conversations with Felurian are clear as glass. Her lessons may as well be written on my skin. The sight of her. The taste of her mouth. They are all fresh as yesterday.

But other things I cannot bring to mind at all.

For example, I remember Felurian in the purpling twilight. It dappled her through the trees, making her look as if she were underwater. I remember her in flickering candlelight, the teasing shadows of it concealing more than it revealed. And I remember her in the full, rich amber of lamplight. She basked in it like a cat, her skin warm and glowing.

But I do not remember lamps. Or candles. There is a great deal of fuss when dealing with such things, but I cannot remember a single moment spent trimming a wick or wiping soot from the glass hood of a lamp. I do not remember the smell of oil or smoke or wax.

I remember eating. Fruit and bread and honey. Felurian ate flowers. Fresh orchids. Wild trillium. Lush selas. I tried some myself. The violets were my favorite.

I don’t mean to imply she ate only flowers. She enjoyed bread and butter and honey. She liked blackberries especially. And there was meat, too. Not with every meal, but sometimes. Wild venison. Pheasant. Bear. Felurian ate hers so rare that it was almost raw.

She was not a fastidious eater, either. Not prim or courtly. We ate with our hands and teeth, and afterward, if we were sticky with honey or pulp or the blood of bears, we would wash ourselves in the nearby pool.

I can see her even now, naked, laughing, blood running down her chin. She was regal as a queen. Eager as a child. Proud as a cat. And she was like none of those things. Nothing like them. Not in the least little bit.

My point is this: I can remember our eating. What I cannot remember is where the food came from. Did someone bring it? Did she gather it herself? I cannot bring it to mind to save my life. The thought of servants intruding on the privacy of her twilight glade seems impossible to me, but so is the thought of Felurian baking her own bread.

The deer, on the other hand, I could understand. I had not the least doubt she could run one to ground and kill it with her hands if she desired. Or I could picture a shy hart venturing into the quiet of her twilight glade. I can imagine Felurian sitting, patient and calm, waiting until it came close enough to touch....

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 764