"Stairs!" I moaned. "No, not the stairs! Not now!" I flopped down on the ground outside the Jade Tiger. I'd spent two hours of that day running in heavy boots, and another hour or more wandering about the City of Men, looking for this place. My feet hurt. I felt angry with myself for having drawn pictures in my spellbook during the Heartwood Master's lecture on how to read a map. "South" meant no more or less to me than "Uluwaenae" did. It had all seemed so arbitrary until now.
"Hey! Watch it!" A passing human almost tripped over me where I sat.
"Sorry," I called after him. They really couldn't see without light. The sky was still a very deep blue; real darkness wouldn't come for a while yet. I scooted back against a wall, where I'd be out of the way.
Humans were indeed a strange race. I hadn't really met very many yet, other than Bankerra, but she alone was enough to bear out Father's descriptions. She'd grabbed my food away from me, then agreed to be my guide through Freeport. Then she'd enlisted my help, only to put me -- not to mention Wrixlan and Nazix -- in danger, by bragging too loudly and alerting the rest of the Cutthroats. That was a cowardly act. Yet even when we'd faced almost certain death, she stood firm, ready to give her own life to save us all.
She couldn't read. The words of Norrath's great philosophers were therefore beyond her reach. She followed no god. Still, for all her faults, it seemed she instinctively understood what others, including myself, had to be taught -- each of us is responsible for his actions, each of us makes his own place in the world, and above all, death is always a possibility.
Gazing up at the sky, now quite dark, I remembered the very first set of laws I'd learned from the Heartwood Master. Those lessons had allowed me to distinguish what side everyone was on. Orcs were evil, elves were good. Killing orcs was all right with the Mother of All, because they threatened our way of life, as did the undead, and the pixies, and any number of other creatures. But those rules made no room for someone like Bankerra, or Nazix, or even Ninian. They were kind one moment and horrible the next.
I wished Father were there so I could ask him about it. The more I thought about that, though, the more I realized that while Father was tolerant of other beings, he himself followed Tunare. When it came to his own life, he held the Mother's laws above all. I knew he would tell me to do the same, always, no matter what.
My feet felt a little better. It would be a day or two before they were quite themselves, but they didn't complain too much as I climbed the stairs to Uncle Zophia's home.
Tinna opened the door at my light knock. "You have returned," she said as I entered the living room. "Zophia was unsure as to whether you would come back, yet I predicted you would not return to Faydwer so suddenly. We did not wish to wake you this morning."
"That's okay," I said. "You guys were out cold when I got up. I didn't want to bother you either." Tinna's bright red eyes looked gentler for just a second. She still scared me on a gut level, but I sensed she was becoming fond of me in her own way.
"Gwion!" Uncle Zophia came out of the kitchen, looking a bit harrassed. "I've been trying to cook, but -- hello, wait a minute!" He beamed. "Look at you! You reached your fifteenth season!"
I blushed. "Well, uhm, I --"
"We have to celebrate!" He bustled back into the kitchen again. I heard rummaging noises, then a loud crash as a pan hit the floor. "Damn and blast! I know we didn't drink that Elven wine yet!"
"It is in the cupboard," Tinna said without turning around. "It is behind the bottle of sauce, as it has been since we obtained it a week ago. Do not continue to knock things over."
Zophia appeared, carrying the bottle of wine and three tankards. A dusting of cobwebs adorned the top of his head. "Here we are!" He popped the cork and poured some wine for each of us. "To Gwion!" he said, raising his tankard.
"Thanks," I said. "Mmm, this is good."
"Wait until you taste my vegetable pie!" Zophia smiled again, a smile that started with his face but spread over his whole being, then out into the room around him. I could see why Tinna found him appealing, and why Father had befriended him. Normally not this effusive, he'd been transformed by my small triumph. He was truly happy for me, and he wasn't being stingy about sharing it.
Tinna started toward the kitchen. "I made some snake fillets for you," Zophia called after her. He looked at me and made a face. "Snake fillets!" he whispered.
We sat down to eat dinner. "Now," Zophia said, "Gwion, you must tell us what you did today."
"Well, I ran into this warrior I know --" I told them about everything. Zophia chuckled proudly when I'd finished.
"Excellent!" he said. "Good work pulling that Barbarian away from the camp. That's exactly what you should have done. The Heartwood Master taught you well -- that stuffy old son of a high elf." He finished off the wine in his tankard.
"Stuffy?" I knew the Heartwood Master was, well, a little inflexible, but I was surprised to find that someone else agreed with me. "Why do you say that?"
"Well." Zophia suddenly found something very interesting on the ceiling. "Er, well -- "
"You have told me this many times," Tinna said. "He does not wish to offend you, Gwion, and he is searching for the words that will not do so, though there are none."
"Oh, I don't know," I said, "I've always thought he was a little, um, rigid, I suppose. Go on, Uncle Zophia. Don't worry."
Zophia sighed heavily. "It's just that -- well, the laws of Tunare are the laws of Tunare. You follow them, or you don't. I'm not one to judge others for not doing so. And yet, passing judgement on others who don't follow the laws of Tunare is part of following the laws of Tunare in the first place." He played with his fork. "Do you understand?"
"You mean how it's okay to kill some things, and not okay to kill others?"
"Well, that's part of it." Zophia put his fork down. He sighed again. "It's hard to explain."
"Nonsense." Tinna picked up the empty plates. "You have explained it to me. You can do so for Gwion -- even if she is Llewellyn's daughter." She went out to the kitchen, and I heard her start to clean up.
"Llewellyn's daughter," I finally said. "So this is why you and father argued."
"Yes, yes, we argued, more than once in fact." Zophia poured more wine into his tankard and settled back into his chair.
"About the laws of Tunare?"
"No, not about the laws of Tunare." Zophia took a drink of wine. "The laws of Tunare are a fine thing. I followed them just as you do."
"Followed them? You mean, not anymore?"
"Well, I do and I don't." Zophia looked at me helplessly. "I really can't say."
I was never going to get any answers at this rate. Mustering all my courage, I looked Zophia right in the eyes. "You brought this up," I said. "Now finish it. Tell me what happened the last time you spoke to my father."
"This will take a while." Zophia got up and moved toward the armchair. "I might as well have a comfortable seat. Come on, and I'll just tell you what happened."
