Chapter Forty-One
Druadaen guided Heela to the broad expanse of rock that ringed the pool from which the cataract began its descent down the hill. She sat, gathering her bathing garment around her as tightly as modesty would allow. “Will I have to remove it?” she asked him.
He shook his head, smiled. “No. I can determine its weight and volume separately.”
She smoothed the garment, a shift made from an old campaign tent and a small sail. Her cats ambled toward her, two rubbing against her legs.
S’ythreni smiled. “I thought you said all animals ran at your approach?”
Heela answered with a smile of her own. “From what I have seen, cats follow only one rule reliably.”
“Which is?”
“That they follow no rule reliably.”
S’ythreni laughed. “Now that is an axiom I shall remember.”
“You should. It is one of yours.”
S’ythreni’s brow furrowed. “Mine?”
“It is an Iavan saying. A very, very old Iavan saying. I think your word is Uulamantrene?” Failing to notice S’ythreni’s dumbfounded gape, she turned back toward Druadaen. “Shall I get in the pool now?”
“Not yet. I must ready my measuring devices.”
She stared at the contraptions he had made, with Elweyr’s ready assistance, out of shields, beams and a single, smoothed length of pine. “It is very strange.”
He smiled. “You are very kind to have loaned us all these parts.” He adjusted the cradle which straddled the mostly flat rocks that flanked the natural spout from which the cataract rushed forth.
“I had no reason not to loan them to you,” she replied. “Particularly when you offered to repair or restore so many of my tools.”
Ahearn looked up from rebinding the wider grip that Heela had added to one of her human battle-axes. “Ah, fixing things for you just makes it clear that our species are more alike than different.”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re just like a human wife, aren’t you? ‘Fix this, do that!’”
Heela laughed uncertainly; her existence was utterly without parallels to human domestic life. But Umkhira raised an eyebrow. “If that is truly what your wives say, then you have strange wives.”
Druadaen looked up from ensuring the four round shields were firmly secured to the pine shaft, each one fixed at a right angle to its length. “Ahearn, Umkhira: a hand, if you please.”
They put down their mending and sharpening tasks and helped him set the pine in fat-greased brackets on both sides of the cradle: the axle was secure. As they closed the top of each bracket, Padrajisse looked at the strange device as if with new eyes. “I have seen such a machine before. On one of your ships, Dunarran. But it was upright and measured the wind.”
Druadaen nodded. “An anemometer. The number of rotations in a minute tells you the speed of the breeze. Here, we lay it on its side to measure how much water leaves the pond every minute.”
Heela frowned. “I thought you determined that yesterday, when you tested the device.”
“I did, but now we will see how much more water empties out when first you lay down in the pond.”
Her face brightened. “And that is how you shall know how much I weigh!”
“More or less.”
“So all I have to do is sit in the pool?”
“No, you must lay in it, with just your head above the water. And I will need you to keep one wrist close to the surface.”
Heela’s frown was one of perplexity, not disapproval. “You already determined the speed at which my heart beats.”
“Yes, but that was yesterday, on land, and at a higher temperature. It may change today.”
“And what is the importance of that?” asked Umkhira, who had gone back to hammering a metal shield into a shape that would make it a useful serving dish.
“Determining Heela’s weight is only part of the process whereby I may estimate how much blood her heart is pumping every minute.”
S’ythreni’s smile and tone were akin to those with which older siblings simultaneously tease and indulge the pet projects of younger ones. “And all of that tells you…what, exactly?”
Druadaen smiled back at her. “Are you really sure you want that explanation?”
“Gods no!” she laughed, returning to the tedious job of restitching the blanket of many bears.
“Well,” said the giantess, shooing away one of the more insistent cats, “what I would like to understand is why you are doing this at all.”
“He means to find out if you exist,” Ahearn snickered. “He’s quite sure you can’t.”
“Ignore him,” Druadaen muttered with a grin, “although there is something in what he says. It’s hard to understand how your body functions without a faster heartbeat. Somehow, enough blood is reaching your extremities, even though your pulse is much lower than the largest titandrays.”
“Ah. The great beasts of legends.” She nodded sadly. “They are no longer found on Far Amitryea.”
Padrajisse was frowning at the giantess’s flank. “Mistress Heela, how long have you had this injury?”
“An injury? I did not know I had one.”
Padrajisse uttered a concerned grunt. “You seem to have a seeping wound,” she said gravely, “just above your hip. With your permission, I would examine it. And treat it, if I can.”
Heela shrugged her acquiescence as the sacrista shot a concerned look at Druadaen.
He rose from adjusting the twine and take-up spool of his makeshift flow meter. “Heela, may I join Padrajisse?”
“I suppose so. What manner of injury is it?”
“A cut in your side. Ragged.” Padrajisse answered, as she held aside the giantess’s shift. Approaching, Druadaen studied the puzzling rent in the massive torso. It was almost entirely bloodless and did not resemble a laceration. It appeared more like a slit in a pouch packed with thick, almost caked lard. “Heela, you do not feel any pain?”
“Where you are? No. That is the part of our bodies where we store slumber fat. It has almost no feeling. Is the injury deep?”
Padrajisse was frowning at the ragged edges of the wound. “It is difficult to say, but there is no blood showing. But will a wound on your side heal without care?”
Heela thought for a long moment. “I cannot say. The cut you describe is the kind we get when running through trees, stumbling and focused on nothing but food. Usually they heal, but sometimes they do not.” She paused. “Does the wound have a bad smell?”
“No. At least, not yet. But with your permission, I would close it.”
“Will your god allow you to use its power on me?”
Padrajisse’s smile was more like a grimace. “Probably, but I need no miracle for this work. You may feel a pinch or two.” She glanced into her physician’s pouch. “Umkhira, do you have another of those large needles?”
Umkhira raised an eyebrow. “They are iron nails, but I do have one other. Here. I shall make a fire to purify it.”
“Many thanks, Lightstrider. Druadaen, I have seen that you keep a clean blade in your pack.”
“I do, Sacrista.”
“Do you see the outer margins of the fat, where it has dried?”
“Yes.”
“These concern me. Please remove that part until you get to a softer margin.”
Druadaen produced the knife, approached, then hesitated.
“Why do you pause, Dunarran?”
“I am no surgeon, Sacrista.”
“If you can cut the rind off soft cheese, you can easily do what I have asked. Besides, you wished to study giants closely.” Padrajisse probably meant her tone to be jocular, but it came out as darkly ironic. “You may now study one more closely than any human in living memory. Perhaps ever.”
Druadaen nodded, beginning to realize that this was indeed a singular opportunity to learn about giants, but not as the sacrista meant. Shifting the knife to his left hand, he dug in his bag with his right and found one of the empty vials he always brought on his travels. “Heela,” he began, “I have an unusual request…”
* * *
By the time the sun was settling behind the higher slopes to the southwest, the fellowship had built a roaring fire. Its leaping flames were quite high, thanks to a judicious application of the pitch that Heela harvested every time she happened to break the heavy branches or even boles of suitable trees. Umkhira’s and S’ythreni’s hunt had been successful and Druadaen discovered his mouth was watering at the smell of venison. Having given all their rations to their host two days ago, the group was in dire need of a good meal.
Druadaen smiled as the fire warmed his face and he mused at the aptness of characterizing Heela as “their host.” Whereas almost every step along their path had been more difficult than anticipated, this one—meeting a giant—had ultimately proved to be a happy surprise. Instead of coercing her compliance through an array of lethal threats, willing cooperation had arisen from conversation, compassion, and a willingness to let mutual curiosity become greater than mutual fear.
Ahearn rose to test the readiness of the meat. Anticipating greasy fingers, Druadaen carefully packed away the last of the day’s notes. He secured the sheafs in one of his last tubes, which he then stored neatly within the remarkable self-sealing pouch he had been given by Aji Kayo.
“So, friend Druadaen,” Heela said, watching his packing with interest, “what have you learned?”
He shrugged. “I won’t know until I have a quiet—and safe—place to consult the books I left back in Treve.”
“Surely you must have guesses, though?”
“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Ahearn laughed. “You’ve asked our very own Dunarran foo—er, philosopher to share his guesses and hypotheses.”
“So?”
“So, now we’ll be stuck here listening forever. Which will force us to decide between the only two options we’ll have, at that point.”
“And what are they?”
“Why, to cut out his tongue or cut off our ears.”
Heela was aghast until even Druadaen himself had to grin. Padrajisse may have as well. Or she may have experienced a sudden uprush of bile. It was impossible to tell which.
Heela finally laughed tentatively, looking around the fire as if she had come to doubt the sanity of littlings all over again. “Jests aside, you became increasingly interested in your measurements as the day went on. Why?”
Under other circumstances, Druadaen would have continued to defer answering. However, as the group was leaving on the morrow, this was the last opportunity to satisfy her understandable curiosity. “Unless I am very much mistaken, a purely natural biped of your size, and with your heartbeat and approximate mass of blood to circulate, should barely be able to stand up without becoming faint. Or unconscious.”
“So,” Heela said with a nod, “we are, as our legend tells, a creation of gods that meant us to exist as we do: forever stunted by our size. Why else would they make us as we are?”
“Which I must politely dispute,” Padrajisse said as she rose to help cut the venison. “As to the reason you were made as you were, who can say? The gods are the gods and their ways and powers are as unfathomable to us as ours are to ants.
“But like all things, you serve a purpose in that consensus of powers which we call creation, whether or not it is obvious to you or any other being that inhabits these mortal coils. And that purpose would not simply be to exist in misery.
“However, we are in full agreement on one point: that you are indeed a supernatural creation of the gods. And whether they fashioned you so that your body is a miracle that now works without their further intercession, or whether their constant touch is what sustains you against natural laws, that is merely a difference in the manner of their involvement. Druadaen’s measurements prove only one thing to me: that every beat of your heart is proof of deity’s impress upon your origins and being.” She moved around the group, passing out the steaming meat.
“It is strangely pleasant,” Heela mused, “to have such disagreements.” Padrajisse was not the only one who stared at her in perplexity. “You see, I have rarely spoken to littlings before. But never have I been able to converse and laugh and even debate with them.” She sighed. “It is a shame there cannot be such concourse between our peoples. But what would be the basis of it? What common goals do we share? What do we have that you would ever want?”
“Well,” mused Elweyr, “there’s the pitch.”
“What about it?”
“It’s fairly valuable. Needful for many things.” He shrugged. “It’s not as valuable as silver, or gold, or even copper. But there’s always demand for it, and you get it simply by moving around,” he finished with a smile.
“But would the farmers of Aswyth Plain have any interest in it?”
Ahearn’s eyes glittered. “Not for themselves, no, but no farmer ever lived five seasons who did not find a way to sell or make use of everything that comes to hand. And in the case of pitch, they can store it until they go to market. Or traders come to them.”
“Traders do not come here often. The roads to this place are few and poor.”
“Well,” said S’ythreni, “maybe you could help with that, too.”
Heela shook her head, partly in perplexity, partly in denial. “I have no knowledge of roads, and I am not skilled with tools.”
“Well, are you skilled with walking?”
“I do not understand.”
“Do you not?” The aeosti smiled. “If you spend a day walking back and forth on a stretch of their roads, it will be flatter and harder than the streets of Treve.”
Heela was frowning and smiling hopefully at the same time. “And if I…if we giants…could do this for the littlings, would it really be worth enough for them to give us the food we require?”
Druadaen considered. “If it keeps you from stealing it and destroying even more in your raids, perhaps so. But if you also became their friend…well, that is a value unto itself.” Ahearn nodded agreement with a shrewd smile.
“Again, I do not understand.”
Druadaen folded his hands. “If you become the farmers’ friend, then you will have the opportunity to explain that the Bent are not your allies and do not act at your bidding. You might even offer to warn the farmers if you see signs that the Bent are gathering for a raid.”
“Or,” urged Padrajisse cautiously, “you might invite the nearby families to light a signal fire in the event they are already beset by underkin.”
She brightened. “I could run down the hills and scare away the Bent, just as I have scared the farmers in the past. Yes, that might work.”
“Might.” S’ythreni sighed. “Littlings have short memories and greedy hearts.” She looked around the group. “Mostly.”
Heela nodded. “I am not convinced that such agreements could ever be struck with the farmers, S’ythreni, but any hope is an improvement over present conditions. I shall try these things, and if they succeed for me, then they may help others of my kind.” She held out a careful hand toward each of them. With each, she touched palms. “I shall remember our conversation and keep your faces and words close in my heart.”
She yawned. “Now my eyes grow heavy again, but I believe I shall sleep more peacefully than I have in many a decade. And that means I may not awake before you depart. So before I seek the comfort of my restitched blanket of many bears”—she smiled at S’ythreni and Umkhira—“tell me: What may I give you in return for the hope you have given me?”
They looked at each other. Over the past three days, they had seen everything Heela possessed and had repaired over half of it. It was of no value to anyone but her. And as they had gleaned from her stories, giants neither used nor coveted precious metals or gems. The sensible ones realized they had nothing to buy, whereas the blindly covetous ones quickly discovered how often they dropped and lost such small objects.
When no one responded, she turned toward Druadaen with another yawn; it blew his hair back as if he had been standing at the prow of a ship sailing into the wind. “You,” she said, “are always asking about the past. So maybe I can tell you of earlier days, either the ones I have lived in or have heard about. We giants do live a very long time if we are not untimely slain. And while we do not have archives such as the one you have mentioned, we do have long memories, too. So what we lack in present knowledge, we may make up for in telling you of older days. Or even old acquaintances.”
Druadaen straightened. “Acquaintances such as…?”
“Other creatures that live a very long time, naturally. But I doubt there are many of those left.”
S’ythreni picked venison daintily off a bone. “Why do I suspect that very few of those acquaintances die of old age?”
“Because you are aeostu and you know the way of such things. Still, there are things in the world even older than you.”
Druadaen took a guess. “I suspect that the long-lived beings of your acquaintance also spend a great deal of time asleep.”
Heela nodded. “How did you know?”
“Because if they do not die of old age, it means they must die from killing each other—which makes little sense—or from having to find food regularly and come into contact with ‘littlings.’”
She nodded. “So you understand.”
“I’m starting to,” Druadaen answered hopefully. “So I presume our best chance of talking to an ancient being is to find one that spends a great deal of time asleep. Like you.”
She shook her head. “Even more than us. Waking every year still makes us easy to find and predict. No, the more a species sleeps, the more likely some of those old acquaintances are still alive.” She thought, nodded to herself. “You need to speak to dragons.”
Druadaen thought he might swallow his tongue. “Dragons,” he repeated in a croak.
“Yes,” she said. “Not that I am personally acquainted with a lot of dragons—”
—he managed not to blink: not a lot of dragons?—
“—and most of those I knew have probably fled to North Omthrye. Not enough room for them down here, anymore. But I have suspicions where a few others have gone, and where their kin still lair.”
“And how long do dragons sleep?”
“Long enough to digest a whole town, I suppose,” Ahearn mused, deftly picking his teeth with his dagger.
Heela ignored him with a small smile. “They seem to sleep longer as they grow older. Or larger. Or both. I am not really sure. Some are said to sleep for decades.”
“Well,” said S’ythreni far too brightly and with far too wide a smile aimed at Druadaen, “I guess we’ll just have to ask them when we drop in for tea.”
Heela had not yet learned to discern the aeosti’s arch irony. “I do not know how they would feel about such questions. Dragons are cagey folk—”
—Wait: Dragons are “folk?” Really?—
“—so I don’t know if they would answer you. Or consider it polite for you to ask. But I suppose the only way to find out is to try.” She rose and stretched. “Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to take your scraps and throw them down the slope. That will keep the cats from bothering me while I eat and tell you what I know of dragons.” She picked up the hopelessly battered shield that had been pressed into service as a bone dish and walked toward the far side of the footpath, making the same psss-wsss-wsss cat-summoning whisper that Druadaen had heard in human cities and farmlands since he could remember.
As soon as she was out of earshot, S’ythreni made a whisper of her own. “So let me guess: Now you mean to go have a chat with ‘not a lot’ of dragons?”
“Well,” Druadaen answered with a small smile, “I suspect just one would do.”