calm me?" the young woman asked. ?Are they merely telling us what we need to hear? ?
Belli'mar Juraviel settled back. ?No," he answered with the calm of com-plete confidence. ?Have you noticed the tables they set? The meals they have brought to us? ?
Brynn tilted her head, staring at him intently, needing to find the same conclusions as he obviously already had.
"They eat the produce of the earth, the gifts of Ga'na'Tynne. They eat the fruits and vegetables, the fungi of the tunnels. But not the animals. King Eltiraaz spoke truly of his people when he said that they hold the creatures of Ga'na'Tyl in the highest reverence and would not harm them. Diredusk is running free and unharmed, I am sure."
"They harm no creatures of Ga'na'Tyl," Brynn echoed with a sarcastic chuckle. ?Except for humans."
"Whom they believe deserving of their wrath," Juraviel was quick to point out. ?Consider those of your race with whom they have had contact. Trappers and hunters, loggers and rogues who have been chased from their own lands. Humans who clear-cut the trees and slaughter the animals, often merely for a pelt to sell in the east. Humans who set traps that cause excru-ciating pain to their prey, without regard for the animal. If the Doc'alfar feel kinship to the living animals, then how could they not feel anger at some or the tactics that trappers and hunters of your race employ?"
Brynn merely shrugged and shook her head, hardly seeming convinced the argument that the Doc'alfar were, in some way, justified in the hor-We executions they routinely practiced on humans inadvertently walking onto their lands. Juraviel didn't try to convince her otherwise, didn't believe that she would ever truly understand. For she was human, if Touel'alfar trained and To-gai-ru, and she understood there to be a redeeming side to her race. Ju-raviel recognized that as well, but, seeing the world as a Touel'alfar, he was much more sympathetic to the Doc'alfar view of things. In many ways, he saw these distant cousins as even more honorable than his own people, who hunted the deer, pigs, fowl, and rabbits of Andur'Blough Inninness. The Doc'alfar only did harm to living creatures they believed deserving of their wrath. It wouldn't occur to Eltiraaz to have a great deer slaughtered to fill his own table with venison steaks. It wouldn't occur to any of the Doc'alfar to kill foraging creatures that happened onto their gardens.
No, but hu-mans were not like the animals, for they were possessed of reason.
To the Doc'alfar way of thinking, then, that reason condemned them for actions against the precepts of Doc'alfar life.
When he thought of the horrid zombies, Juraviel shuddered and could not totally agree with the Doc'alfar ways. But neither could he deny that there was a consistent simplicity to that philosophy, and one that had more than a little justification.
He looked over at Brynn, who had settled back and seemed ready to sleep, and he did not press the point any further.
The pair felt the looks, most merely curious, but some truly suspicious, on them at all times as they walked the ways of Tymwyvenne over the next week. They were allowed practically free rein, except that they could not leave the city - King Eltiraaz didn't want to give away too much of the exact location, after all - and could not enter anything other than public struc-tures unless invited, which they were not.
It was pleasant enough, though, and surely interesting. For Brynn, this was yet another new world, widening her already wide horizons; and for Belli'mar Juraviel, this was a glimpse into a different branch of his own history. Many of the Doc'alfar customs were familiar to him, the notes of their communal songs so similar to those of Caer'alfar that at times he was able to join in. But so much else was different, and strangely fascinating! His own people worked with the living, with great trees and flowers, blend-ing into the harmony of the flora and fauna of Andur'Blough Inninness. The Doc'alfar, though, worked with the dead, with cut logs and zombie slaves. Their artisans carved masterwork pieces on the walls of every struc-ture. Their armorers turned slabs of wood into fantastic shields and body pieces, backing them with thick mosslike blankets the gatherers brought in. Their culture seemed somewhat coarser to Juraviel, as much a matter of de-struction as creation, but in truth, it seemed strangely beautiful to him, and equally harmonious with the ways of nature, if