I don't much like sitting around doing nothing. Over the following days, I tried to get up and leave the room, even just for a moment. But Grimmfaith was everywhere. Sneaking on his silent halfling feet, he foiled my every attempt at freedom. "There'll be no getting up and walking about," he'd say, scowling me back into bed. "Ye're not well, Missy!" I kept telling him I felt fine, but he would have none of it.
Once, I tried making myself invisible so I could get outside, but Grimmfaith's sharp ears must have caught the squeak of my chamber door. I was only a few steps out into the hallway when I looked up and saw him standing there, arms folded, glaring at me. I sighed, turned, and got back into bed.
I was very grateful for Grimmfaith's help. I was also very bored. To entertain myself, I first tried to remember every item on every shelf in Mother's shop back in Kelethin. Then I tried to teach myself to read a map I found in the bedside table drawer--I had no luck, but I did try. I brought out my spellbook and scribed all the spells I hadn't used yet. I even fixed all the loose pages with some paste one of the halflings brought me.
But all that was just a distraction from my real preoccupation: worrying about Uncle Zophia, Tinna, and Father. When I could stop stewing long enough to sleep, I had terrible dreams. Huge trees grabbed Tinna and pulled her tiny body apart; the earth opened up and swallowed Uncle Zophia as Father stood there watching, grimly smug. I had to find a way to get them all to talk to each other again. I had to find out why Tunare would take Uncle Zophia's powers away, forget her own child.
On the morning of the fourth day since I'd regained consciousness, Grimmfaith came, as usual, with a large mug of tea. "Did ye sleep well?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Grimmfaith, please. I'm all right, I promise you. Please, please--"
"Ah," he interrupted, "No more of that. Now sit up. You've got a visitor." He motioned toward the door, and another halfling entered the room. I couldn't always tell how old halflings were, but this one had a few streaks of grey in his black hair. He wasn't tall, of course, but he stood straight, as if his true height were larger than his stocky body. He held a mug of Grimmfaith's tea in one hand.
"Hello, Gwion," he said. "I'm Hibbs Rootenpaw, druid guildmaster of Rivervale. Thank you, Grimmfaith," he said, nodding toward the door. Grimmfaith fussed with my blankets a little, then quietly left the room.
"Hello," I said. "I have some questions for you. I--"
He held up a hand. "Just a minute now, there's no hurry. Grimmfaith tells me you've been asking for me since he brought you here." He drew a chair to my bedside and sat down. I noticed that his feet were indeed quite large, as Uncle Zophia had mentioned, and covered in thick, curly hair.
"Master Rootenpaw--"
"Please call me Hibbs," he said. I was astounded. Call him Hibbs? I could never call the Heartwood Master anything but "Master." I didn't even know if he had a real name.
"Uh, Hibbs," I said. "I came here to find you. I am a druid of Tunare, as Grimmfaith probably told you."
"He did." Hibbs smiled. "You know that we halfling druids worship Karana, the Rainkeeper. Do you know of Karana?"
"Well, I--no, not much, only what my father told me." I took a sip of tea and felt a little less nervous. Grimmfaith did wonders with some old dry leaves and boiling water, I thought.
Hibbs settled into his chair. "When Norrath was new," he said, "There was nothing. Nothing, that is, until the rains came. Without rain, there can be no grass, no trees, and no food. All life began with the rain."
"It rains all the time in Kelethin," I said. "I like it. After the rain, everything looks so green and beautiful."
"Do you always like it?" Hibbs said, looking up from his tea.
"What? Well, yes, I do." I wondered if his question were a test of my good will.
"Are you sure?" Hibbs smiled at me. "What about thunder and lightning?"
I laughed. "Well, when I was a child, thunder and lightning scared me. But not now."
"You had good reason to be afraid," Hibbs said, leaning forward. "You still do. Thunder won't kill you, but lightning can. Especially if you're outdoors wearing plate armor." He grinned. "Didn't you ever wonder why we druids are not allowed to wear plate armor? One lightning spell and we'd electrocute ourselves where we stood!"
"I never thought of that," I said.
"And floods!" He jumped up from his chair, sploshing tea onto my blanket. "Floods! Water everywhere, submerging the crops, invading homes, causing people to swim for their very lives!" I cringed back into my pillows. The Heartwood Master never got carried away like that. Donnalinna had been right; these halflings were a lot different from me.
Hibbs sat down again. "Nature," he said, smoothing his hair back into place. "Karana and Tunare bring us life, but they can also take it away." He nodded.
"I understand," I said. "But what does that have to do with--"
Hibbs shot me a look, exactly as Grimmfaith would have if I'd interrupted him. "Whether we worship Karana or Tunare," he continued, "All of us druids draw our power from nature. We can control the wind, we call the earth to do our bidding, and the animals and insects, and the flames. Now why--" he leaned forward, I smelled the tea on his breath--"Why do you think we can do that?"
"Well," I said. "I, uh, well, I suppose because Tunare and Karana give us the power to--"
"WRONG! Hahaha!" Hibbs sprang up again and did a little cackling dance. "Hee hee! Wrong, wrong. They give us life, yes. But they don't give us power."
"They don't?" I was confused. "But how do we--"
"We take it." Hibbs smiled. "They put it there for us, and we take it. It's that simple. We don't just sit there waiting for the power to come to us. It's all around us, in the wind, and the trees, and the world. We reach out to nature, and nature comes to our aid."
What he said made sense. If I needed to kill something or help someone, I asked Tunare for the power, and it came. I didn't stand around waiting for Tunare to move my arms for me and get the job done. That thought gave me an idea.
"Hibbs," I said, "Would Tunare or Karana ever stop offering us power? I mean, would they make it so we couldn't call nature to help us?"
"Hum," said the halfling. "I don't see how they could stop anyone now. Nature is already there. Of course, if they took nature completely away, we wouldn't be able to draw on it. But the world would have to disappear for that to happen."
"What if one of them wanted to punish someone?"
"Why, child," Hibbs said, "Why would a god want to punish anyone who took the trouble to learn how to ask nature for help?" He drank the last of his tea. "Tunare and Karana made us, so they love us. They made the world for us to live in, and made it so we could ask the world for help. Now their job is done." He shrugged. "They're gods, not judges. Do you really think that one little act by one little being is going to get their attention when they have all of nature to look after?"
"Are you sure about that?" I asked. "What if someone did something that Tunare said was wrong?"
Hibbs scowled. "Are you listening to me, child? I said, it's done. Nature is there!" He looked around for a window, but settled on pointing at the outside wall. "It's too late to take nature back now. Nature is ours to live in."
I had to make sure he was right. "What if we destroy it?"
"If we destroy nature," Hibbs sighed, "Then we shall have no other. And no one will have the power anymore." He rubbed his temples. "Am I making sense to you?"
I smiled gratefully. "Yes," I said.
"Good." Hibbs sat back in his chair. "Now, what was your question?"
"I already know the answer," I said. "Now I just have to get it to the person who needs it."
