. . . dangerous,” Fox agreed. “And the danger would be not only to you, but to anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the area. But you conducted yourself well, and you have pleased them. It is good.”
“Oh yes,” Rosa said, approaching from the direction of the party. “Oh yes, it is very good. I brought you some bread and cheese I got from the cook tent. You shouldn’t go to sleep with nothing but beer, water and that vile drink the Captain loves so much in your stomach. You’ll regret it in the morning otherwise.”
“In fact, she should not go to bed until she no longer feels even the breath of the firewater in her head,” Fox agreed.
“I don’t think I could go to bed right now anyway,” she admitted. “I feel like a spinning top! Only in a good way, not a dizzy way.”
“I’m going to guess, because it doesn’t work that way for an Earth Master, that this is the effect of conquering the final Air energies and taking them into yourself,” Rosa told her. “Everything feels more alive, right?”
“And clearer, and sharper, and as if I am more in control,” Giselle told her eagerly.
“Eat,” Rosa scolded, before Giselle could launch into a longer description of how she was feeling. “From now on, you won’t have to wonder if lesser Elementals will answer when you call, they always will. But don’t take them for granted, ever, or you’ll lose the respect of the greater ones, and your control and power will fade. Treat them well, they’ll treat you well, just as always.”
“Is that why the Hu-Huk came to you?” Giselle asked Fox.
“I think yes. And that He understood that it would do me much good to see Him again.” Giselle could sense what Fox was not saying, that he missed his forests and plains, his land, and most of all his people and their spirit creatures.
“But now you know the Hu-Huk will come to you,” she pointed out. “And that the distance is nothing to him.”
“Even so,” Fox agreed. “A very good day.”
They talked without saying very much until Giselle finally felt completely sober, and said so. “Thank you, both of you, for today,” she added, with all the feeling she could muster (which was quite a bit at this point).
“It was a pleasure. I’m just glad it went smoothly,” Rosa replied, with a smile in her voice, and yawned. “And on that note, I am going to bed.”
She went up the steps into her vardo and closed the door. But Fox lingered a moment.
“Do not be surprised if the spirits visit you in your dreams,” he said, finally, as she waited to see what he would say. “This seldom happens for those whose spirits are of the earth. But for us . . . often. What happens during waking is often only half of what is to come.”
She felt a thrill, and a little frisson of fear. Only half? But . . .
“They will test your courage,” warned Fox. “And your mettle. Be prepared to hold nothing back from them.”
“What will they do?” she asked, one hand on the doorframe to steady herself.
But Fox shook his head. “I cannot say. Every test is different.”
And with that, leaving her without any answers at all, he turned and vanished into the darkness.
She was almost afraid to sleep, until she reasoned with herself that there was no point in trying to put this off. If the Elementals were determined to test her further in dreams, there was really nothing she could do to prevent that. She would have to sleep eventually, after all.
So she did everything she could think of to steady herself, climbed into her bed, and composed herself for sleep.
One moment she was lying in her bed. The next she was . . . somewhere else.
It was like swimming, or rather floating, but in the air rather than in water. There was no sign of the ground anywhere around, but it didn’t feel as if she was falling, so she felt no fear at all.
There was no horizon, just an endless blue all around her. An empty, endless blue, with light everywhere, but no actual light source.
It was so quiet . . . so very, very quiet.
Then the universe shivered with a single, low note. As if someone had softly struck a gong the size of a mountain.
And then . . . it faded into her view.
It was huge, bigger than the Thunderbird had been. And