Reiffen's Choice Book One of the Stoneways Trilogy

by Butler, S. C.

• ISBN13: 9780765353719
• ISBN10: 0765353717
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-02
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy

Summary

Not until he came out of the trees did Reiffen realize this wasn't a pasture like the ones back home. Halfway up the slope a circle of tall white stones rose ominously from the lush green of the grass, like the tips of some great and terrible claw buried deep beneath the meadow.... Reiffen, only twelve years old, is the true heir to the thrones of both Wayland and Banking. He and his friends Avender and Ferris live in a magical world of talking animals, dwarves, and shape-shifting bears but'¦he lives with the shame of knowing that no one will ever let him rule these kingdoms, that their crowns will bring him nothing but betrayal and sorrow'¦and that he is powerless. Reiffen will have only a short life of child's innocence, a brief respite from the trial of impossible adult responsibility, the trial of attempting to finish a task he can never complete. As he stepped between the slabs, he forced himself to look at the circle'¦.The stones were tall and white and unlike any rock he had ever seen before'¦.There were thirteen of them altogether, spaced irregularly around the circle. None had fallen, but only one or two stood straight. Mostly they leaned this way and that, left and right, forward and backward. Despite himself, he shuddered'¦. And then he was shown the nations of his world from the peak of a fortress drear and tempted with fame and fortune and his rightful place on the throne of great kingdoms--hiskingdoms. He need only surrender his humanity; kill his loves and he would have his childhood fantasy. He would be granted great Black knowledge, more furious than anything he had ever imagined. He could desire justice'¦but would have to kill everything he loved to get it. His prayers would be answered'¦if only he would sacrifice everything he held dear. The earth inside the ring was blackened. Here and there the ground itself had heaved and crumbled, as if whatever had seared the grass had not been content with the burning, but had needed to rip up everything by the roots as well in some places, before trampling it all back underfoot. It was a dead, evil place. Even the smell was different, as if the very moisture of the air had been boiled away, leaving only dry dust in its place. Reiffen's Choiceis the first book in a trilogy about innocence and struggle that can only be compared toEragonandEldest,The Once and Future Kingand Raymond E. Feist'sMagician. It will be an experience you will never forget.

Author Biography

S. C. Butler was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the middle of the last century, which really isn’t so very long ago. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, with no dogs, no cats, and certainly no shape-shifting bears. Reiffen’s Choice is his first novel.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Bear and Boy
 
One warm spring day in Valing, a large, fat bear sunned himself on the gray stone of the Neck. His russet coat gleamed, sleek as a nokken’s: the long mountain winter didn’t seem to have bothered him at all. Half-asleep or half-awake, he lay comfortably between the orchard and the top of the cliff, where the scent of the apple blossoms was almost as lovely as the hum of the bees. Behind him the lake glistened a deep and sparkling blue. Except for a long plume of spray from the falls to the west, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
 
Beyond the orchard, however, the Manor was much more active. It was First Feast that night and everyone was busy with three more tasks than usual. The kitchen was filled with the bustle of crockery and cooking; men and women darted like bats on a summer evening across the long porches that looked out over the orchard. In the schoolroom, the children squirmed hopefully as tantalizing smells drifted in through the open windows from the scullery below.
 
Avender watched from his seat at the window as one of the undercooks rolled a barrel of slops into the yard. The pigs in the pen next door poked eager snouts through the fence and grunted at the fresh stains on the undercook’s apron. But, when Tinnet returned to the kitchen without feeding the hogs, Avender switched his attention back to the front of the schoolroom. Nolo was seated on the desk before the class that morning, instead of their regular teacher, and Avender was paying complete attention. He always listened when Nolo spoke, no matter how many times he had heard the story. That was because Nolo was a Dwarf, and Avender, along with everyone else in Valing, was always interested in anything having to do with Dwarves.
 
Sunshine streamed through the windows, brightening even the dull iron circlet Nolo used to hold back his wild gray hair. The younger children in the front row, not used to seeing the Dwarf so closely, stared at his broad, bare feet. Each toe looked like a knob of gnarled stone. But they were still quite clearly toes because every once in a while Nolo wiggled and stretched them or, if he had an itch, scratched between them with his equally stony fingers.
 
“Then what happened?” asked little Atty Peaks from the front row: Avender knew the younger boy was very much in awe of the Dwarf’s toes, because that was how he had felt at Atty’s age. Probably Atty had heard that Nolo could squeeze pebbles to dust between them, and was desperate to see him do it.
 
Nolo glowered good-naturedly at the small boy. “If you’d pay attention, lad,” he said, “and stop asking so many questions, you might hear what I’m saying.”
 
Half-smothered laughter swept through Atty’s classmates. The Dwarf looked up. Raising his heavy eyebrows at the older students in the back of the room, he warned, “None of that, now. Atty’s doing the best he can. He’s not heard the tale before. What he knows about Mennon or Wizards wouldn’t half-fill an ore car.”
 
The younger children, safe in the schoolroom on a beautiful spring day, shivered delightedly at the mention of Wizards. Avender and the older ones pretended not to care.
 
Away in the orchard the bear lifted his snout to sniff the breeze. Something much more delightful than the scent of apple blossoms was now drifting his way. His black nose wiggled. His small eyes opened. Heaving himself up from his comfortable rock, he began sniffing the air with real interest.
 
“Of course,” Nolo was saying back in the classroom, “Mennon was very interested in Issinlough when he woke. Only we Bryddin had ever seen our shining city before, or the Abyss, for that matter. When Mennon first learned to speak he went with Uhle to the bottom of the lowest tower in the city and pointed at the blackness below. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘Why, that’s the Abyss,’ Uhle answered. ‘How far is it to the bottom?’ Mennon wanted to know. ‘There is no bottom,’ said Uhle.”
 
“Is there really no bottom?” asked Atty.
 
Nolo shook his head. “No, lad, no bottom. Issinlough hangs on the underside of the world, and beyond Issinlough there’s nothing. Whatever’s left of Brydds himself might lie down there in the deep dark, but there’s no bottom to the Abyss.”
 
“And no sky, either?”
 
“No, no sky, either. We Bryddin never knew about the sky till Mennon told us, nor about the sun and moon. But once Uhle heard about them, nothing could keep him from finding the surface. ‘Brighter than the brightest of your lamps,’ was the way Mennon described the sun to us. ‘Brighter than all your lamps rolled into one.’ ” Nolo stroked his long beard thoughtfully for a moment before he went on.
 
“Uhle had always dreamed of such a light. He and I searched for it for years. But once he knew it existed, Uhle knew right away how to reach it. We might not have been able to go up the way Mennon had come down, but we could certainly dig our way to the surface once we knew it was there. As all of you know, we Bryddin are very good at digging.” He wiggled his fingers and stubby toes. Atty’s eyes widened.
 
“Was that the Sun Road?” asked a girl Avender’s age from the back of the class. Avender rolled his eyes, knowing she already knew the answer as well as he did.
 
“That’s what it is now, Ferris,” answered Nolo. “But when we first built it, it was hardly more than a long tunnel. We were in a hurry, at least those of us who took up the work. There are still some in Issinlough who wonder what we need with the sun and moon, let alone trees and flowers.”
 
“Or ale, right, Nolo?” teased a boy who sat to Avender’s left. Avender grinned. Teasing their regular teacher would have been unthinkable, but Nolo was a much easier master. The Dwarf himself laughed at the joke, his beard rolling in little waves across his chest.
 
“That’s right, lad. Mennon hadn’t told us a thing about ale yet. Perhaps if he had, we’d have dug a lot quicker.”
 
The whole class laughed. While they were laughing, a lumbering shape appeared in the yard below. The bear, following the scent he had sniffed out on the back of the breeze, had found his way from the orchard to the side of the sty. The pigs rushed back to the fence as soon as they saw him to snort and squeal at their old foe. They knew what he was up to as soon as he appeared. The bear, however, ignored the pigs completely.
 
But their squealing did attract the notice of the students closest to the windows above the yard. There was a quiet rustling among the desks as they shuffled about for better views. Avender poked his neighbor with his foot.
 
“Reiffen,” he whispered, nodding toward the window. “Redburr’s at the slops again.”
 
The other boy’s eyebrows rose with interest. Carefully he stretched across the desks for a better view.
 
At the front of the room Nolo continued his tale, completely unaware of the activity at the windows. “Can anyone tell me,” he asked, “where we Bryddin were when we finally broke out onto the surface? No, not you, Ferris. You can’t answer every question. Let’s hear from one of the younger lads or lasses who haven’t heard the tale before. All right, Nell, why don’t you tell us.”
 
Nell stood up straight and tall at her desk beside Atty, very proud of her opportunity. “Um, was it Grangore?” she asked.
 
“Absolutely correct!” Nolo slapped his thigh hard, almost causing the legs on the desk to give out below him. Nell beamed.
 
At the pigsty, the great bear rested his forepaws on the rim of the slops barrel and stuffed his heavy head inside. The barrel wobbled but didn’t fall. On the other side of the fence the angry pigs began digging furiously as they tried to get at the thief beyond the railing. Contented grunts echoed from inside the wooden barrel.
 
“It was a beautiful evening,” the Dwarf was saying to the class, “the first evening I ever saw. We came out on the middle slopes of Aloslocin, and the sun was just beginning to set behind Ivismundra. Uhle came out first, but it was a while before he returned for the rest of us. We were afraid of coming up beneath a lake or a river, you see, and had dammed off the upper end of the tunnel. Then we had to take another minute after Uhle pulled down the dam to put on our goggles, just in case the sun was too bright for our eyes. Here, I brought mine in to class today so everyone could have a look. Cut the lenses from a large topaz, I did.”
 
He handed a pair of heavy goggles to Atty, who dropped them, he was so overwhelmed by the honor. Meanwhile the bear had snuffled down all the easy pickings at the top of the barrel and had twisted around on his hind legs to improve his leverage into the tub. Several times he came close to losing his balance, but each time he shifted to the side at the last second and caught himself before the barrel tipped.
 
“That’s real batwing.” Nolo pointed out the goggle straps, while those pupils still paying attention to him carefully handed them around the classroom. “Very soft and strong, batwing. No lighter leather to be found, under sun or ground. There’s a little stretch in it, too, so they fit tight around your head. Say, what are you all looking at out the window there? Avender? Reiffen?”
 
Nolo had finally noticed that most of the class was gathered around the windows and no longer even pretending to pay attention to him. Not wanting to miss out on whatever was happening in the yard below, he hopped off the desk and hurried across the room.
 
“Not again.” He groaned when he saw the backside of the bear sticking up out of the barrel. Leaning out over the sill on his tiptoes, he called down to the alley, “Hey there! Redburr! Get out of there, you overgrown raccoon! You know better than that!”
 
By this time the bear had climbed all the way up onto the top of the barrel, his head and shoulders crammed greedily inside. He was in no position to hear anyone’s scolding. The barrel was very strong, but the bear was very heavy. Both rocked back and forth precariously as the bear shoveled through the dainties within. But that balancing act was too delicate to last more than a moment. The tub teetered, then toppled with a crash. Several smaller barrels nearby were also smashed as Redburr was thrown crashing on top of them and through the fence around the sty. A pair of fish heads and half a moldy cabbage flew high into the air. Shining in the sun, they floated for a moment right in front of the schoolroom windows, then splashed back down in the dirty alley below.
 
Briefly the bear lay stunned in a pile of slops, barrel staves, and fencing. Flecks of broccoli and yesterday’s gravy speckled his ruddy coat. Then the pigs were on him. He rose up with half an old cheese in his mouth and clubbed a few of the more vicious sows with a swing from each of his heavy forepaws. Piglets squealed as they streamed through the hole in the fence. The alley was filled with guzzling hogs and slippery bear, all fighting over the same hunks of grease and filthy vegetables. They careened back and forth in the buttery mess, bashing fresh holes in the fence and sending the rain barrel at the corner of the kitchen flying. The water sluiced out across the ground beneath them; everything was soon churned to mud by their scuffling.
 
The door to the kitchen flew open. Hern herself stormed out, her stoutest broom in hand. Her first shout brought Redburr immediately to his senses. Hastily he scrambled to his feet and shouldered the heaviest sow aside. Then he took off back down the alley toward the orchard with all the speed he could muster, a rotten pumpkin bumping on his backside, his prize cheese still dripping in his mouth.
 
“That’s right!” called Nolo from the window, barely able to contain his laughter. “You run away! As if we haven’t all seen you at your work already!”
 
Hern shook her broom and shouted in turn, “You great fat rug! I’ve told you a hundred times to keep out of the slops! How’re we supposed to get any bacon! I’m going to ban you from the feast tonight, I am!”
 
She turned and stared at the rest of the kitchen staff, who had come out behind her to enjoy the show.
 
“And what are you all gaping at?” she demanded. She stood with hands on hips, even though she was still holding her broom. “Get these pigs back in the pen! We’re behind as it is! We’ll never be ready for tonight! And which one of you put that cheese in with the rest of the garbage? Was that you, Tinnet? You know that fool of a bear can’t control himself when he gets a whiff of spoiled cheese! You’d better get to work cleaning up this mess before I really lose my temper!”
 
Plowing straight into the middle of the hogs, she kicked left and right and batted at them with both ends of her broom. The sows fled in terror, grunting as they scrambled back to the safety of their pen, but a few of the piglets managed to escape. They tore off into the orchard with the kitchen staff chasing behind. The children cheered them on.
 
Hern looked up at the schoolroom. Her eyes narrowed. Every student in sight ducked back inside before she could light into any of them in turn. Nolo wisely followed their example.
 
He retrieved his goggles from where they had been dropped on the floor and said, “I guess that’s the end of this lesson.” The students gave another cheer. “Maybe you should all report downstairs to Hern. I think she’s going to need all the help she can get catching those pigs.”
 
Another cheer went up, louder than the first, especially from the younger children. Much as everyone liked hearing the Dwarf tell them stories of the Stoneways, chasing pigs was even better. No one waited to be dismissed; they fled through the desks and out the door in a clatter of shoes and shouts of glee.
 
Avender, however, wasn’t so lucky. Nolo caught his arm as he was on his way out the door. Reiffen and Ferris saw it all, and ducked away before they were stopped as well.
 
“I need you,” said the Dwarf.
 
“You let everyone else go!” Avender knew what was coming, but Nolo’s grip was far too strong for him to twist away. “Reiffen and I are supposed to go get mussels from Longback.”
 
“The mussels can wait.” Nolo’s eyes twinkled beneath his bushy brows. “The Shaper needs you more. Someone has to help him clean up before the feast, lad. And you’re the one to do it.”
 
Avender groaned. Grooming a filthy bear was the last thing he wanted to do.
 
“I’ve another job I promised Hern I’d help with,” the Dwarf went on, “or I’d take care of him myself. Then I could give him the thumping he needs. Now go on and do as I’ve asked. There may be something in it for you later, if you do.”
 
Avender shuffled off. There was no use hoping he would not be able to find the bear. He had lived his entire life at the Manor and knew every rambling inch of the place, from the highest garret to the deepest cellar. And there were really only a few places Redburr was likely to go. Once the Shaper started to think straight—and there was every chance he had, now that Hern had shocked some sense back into him—he would probably head down to the lake to bathe. Redburr, with his bottomless appetite, looked forward to First Feast as much as anyone; he knew Hern would never allow him in unless he was completely clean. Otherwise he had a tendency to overexcite the dogs. And the quickest way to the lake was through the cellars and down the long stair to the lower dock at the bottom of the cliff.
 
From the hall outside the schoolroom Avender could still hear the uproar in the yard. Reluctantly he turned away and headed for the cellars. Redburr’s most likely route downstairs would be through the back of the house, on the other side of the Great Hall. There was no way he would have risked going through the kitchen to face Hern and her broom again. Sure enough, the boy began to find bits and pieces from the slop barrel on the floor as he neared the back stair. He picked the fallen garbage up as he found it, knowing he would just be sent back to finish the job if he neglected to take care of it now.
 
The messy trail continued down to the busy cellars. It looked like everyone in the Manor, and not a few from Eastbay and the nearer farms, were carrying sacks of smoked fish and sides of bacon, or rolling great cheese wheels and casks of ale and cider along the stone floors between bushel baskets of cabbages and carrots.
 
More than a few of them laughed when they saw the boy. “After the bear, are you?” they called. “Well, you won’t miss him, that’s sure enough. What a stench!”
 
Ignoring them, Avender hurried on through the stone storerooms. The stair to the lower dock had been cut from the Neck and spiraled down through the rock to the lake, many fathoms below. Lighting the lamp that stood ready at the top of the steps, the boy peered into the darkness. A faint smell of rotten cheese and sodden fur greeted him, but no sound drifted up from the cold stone. The bear would not have bothered with a lamp and was probably already at the bottom.
 
Avender started down, light in hand. His long legs threw tramping shadows along the wall beside him. But he didn’t have far to go. After the second or third turn he heard the click of the bear’s claws on the stone ahead. “Redburr?” he called, cupping his free hand to his mouth. “It’s me, Avender. If you’re coming up fast you’d better slow down or you’ll run me over.”
 
The clicking slowed, then stopped completely. A moment later Redburr’s muzzle appeared hesitantly around the curve below, followed by the rest of his shaggy head, now dripping wet. His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. For a moment he looked more like a red-wooled sheep than a bear.
 
“Nolo sent me,” said the boy.
 
“Nolo? Is he mad at me, too?”
 
The fancy that Redburr was a sheep disappeared as soon as he spoke. His deep voice rumbled out from his furry chest like a rock slide tumbling out the mouth of a cave.
 
“What do you think?” answered Avender.
 
“You think Hern’s really going to ban me from the feast?”
 
“So you heard that?” The boy picked a piece of soggy turnip out of the tangled fur at the top of the bear’s massive head. His hand was only a little larger than Redburr’s ear. “You should’ve stayed for your punishment. Now she’s just going to brood, and that’ll make it worse.”
 
“You think I should go take what’s coming to me?”
 
Avender shook his head. “It’s too late. Now you’re better off staying out of her way till tonight. Then, if you’re lucky, she’ll be so busy she’ll forget all about you.”
 
Redburr nodded, his great head swinging through a much larger arc than any human’s. Then he noticed the water dripping from his fur had begun to pool on the stair. Extending his long red tongue, he began to lap it up. Avender added the turnip to the mix, then turned and started back toward the cellars. Behind him there was a quick gulping sound, followed by the padding of heavy paws and the click of claws on stone.
 
There were a few snickers as they passed back through the cellars, but not many. The bear was too big, and too honored, to be made fun of for doing what was natural enough for him. He hadn’t hibernated since arriving in Valing almost ten years ago and, though he could go without hibernation for a long time, the lack of a good, long sleep sometimes confused him. Occasionally he forgot he was living with humans and not deep in the mountain woods, usually when he was around food. But in the end Redburr, who was always very sorry afterward when he forgot himself, was too important to be sent away. He was, after all, a Shaper. Even King Brannis would put up with him if Redburr ever took it into his head to spend ten years in Rimwich.
 
Together, bear and boy climbed up through the Manor to Redburr’s den. Avender thought it wise to keep to the back of the house, as the bear was still dripping and any extra damage to carpets or polished floors would only be added to both their accounts. When they finally reached the top of the house, Redburr crossed straight through the litter of old logs and empty beehives that filled his room to stand at the window with his front paws on the sill, where the strong breeze could ruffle his wet fur. Avender hurried to find the combs and brushes among the husks of bread and stolen jam pots on the floor. If the bear’s fur dried before he got to work, untangling it would be impossible.
 
He saw clouds in the sky when he joined Redburr at the window. In the distance mountains marched down both sides of the lake. Patches of gray shadow skimmed across the dark blue surface along with puffs of sail. Avender reminded himself that the sooner he was done, the sooner he would be able to go out on the lake with Ferris and Reiffen.
 
He turned to the bear’s shaggy coat. As he had feared, the fur was already matted in great tangles and sticky tufts. Choice reminders of Redburr’s foraging remained despite his plunge in the lake. The boy set to work currying the thick fur back into some semblance of respectability. Occasionally Redburr asked for an extra scratch or two on his back or belly, and pointed out every time Avender missed a particularly sticky patch. When he had been smaller, Avender had delighted in plunging his hand and face into the thickets of the bear’s pelt, and welcomed any chance to rub him down after a swim. But now that Avender was older, he saw it only for the work it was.
 
“You could at least have used some soap,” he said as he worked the remains of one of that morning’s muffins off the bear’s hip.
 
“Old Mortin wouldn’t lend me any. He said he wouldn’t be able to use it himself once I was through with it.” Scratching his stomach with his enormous claws, the bear grumbled as Avender pulled the comb hard through a patch on his shoulder that seemed glued together. “I wish Nolo’d sent Ferris up instead of you. She doesn’t pull half my fur out with each pass. Ow!”
 
He cuffed the boy out of the way, not quite gently, and went to work on the troublesome spot with claws and tongue.
 
“You know,” said Avender as he moved to a safer position, “if you’d stop rooting around in the slops you wouldn’t have to go through this.”
 
“Maybe that’s why I do it, boy,” replied the bear, licking away at his sticky fur. “I like rooting around in slops. I am a bear, you know. Mmm. I think I remember that bit.”
 
“You don’t always act like a bear. And other bears can’t talk.”
 
“You know better than that. I’m the bear of bears. Even when I change into something else I’m still really a bear.” As he spoke, a fly buzzed in through the window. Redburr snapped his great jaws at it without even thinking. Large, sharp teeth that might have bitten Avender’s arm in two closed with a loud crunch.
 
“It’d be a lot easier for the rest of us if you’d just be human for the party tonight.” The boy flicked some soggy mushrooms on the floor as the bear turned to let him groom the finer fur at his throat. Redburr eyed the mushrooms for a moment before deciding to leave them for later. “Then you could clean yourself up. And you know how nervous those traders from Lugger get when they see a bear sitting next to them at dinner.”
 
“Let them be nervous.” Redburr rubbed a heavy paw across his nose. “I can eat more when I’m a bear. And I’ve got that trip into the mountains tomorrow with Ranner. If I bothered to change now I’d just have to change back again. You know too much shifting wears me out. It’ll do those bead sellers good to rub elbows with Mother Nature for a few hours.”
 
Avender combed on without saying anything more. Had it been Ferris doing the grooming, the conversation would never have lagged for a moment. And Reiffen would have asked questions about history and places in the world he had never been. But Avender worked quietly and steadily untangling this knot and unraveling that. After a while the bear began to hum.
 
“What song is that?” asked the boy.
 
“A new one I heard part of the other night.” Redburr began peeling long strips of wood off one of the old logs that lay scattered about the room.
 
“Was that when you and Nolo came home drunk from the Bass and Bull?”
 
“We weren’t drunk. You can’t get a Bryddin drunk. And there isn’t enough ale at the Bass to get me drunk.”
 
“Ferris said you were drunk.”
 
“How would Ferris know? She didn’t see us come home.”
 
“No, but they were talking about it in the kitchen the next day. And there were those broken benches in the front hall.” Avender picked some pumpkin seeds off the bear’s back. Somehow they had burrowed into his fur and had to be rooted out like rocks from a garden.
 
“That wasn’t me,” said the bear. “That was Nolo. He wasn’t paying attention when he sat down. He knows those benches aren’t strong enough to hold him.”
 
“Who sang it?”
 
“Who sang what?”
 
“The song you were humming.”
 
“Oh, that. That was Mindrell. A rhymer from the north.”
 
“Is he going to sing tonight?”
 
“He’s supposed to.” Redburr raised his head and growled in his deep, rough voice:
 
“Beyond the west, beyond the night;
 
Beyond the waning of the light . . .”
 
He stopped and licked his nose. “ ‘Mennon’s Ride,’ he called it. Said he’d give us more tonight if we asked him to the feast.”
 
Avender combed silently through a patch thick with butter and gravy on the bear’s flank. Most rhymers who came to Valing tended to sing “The Fall of Ablen” once they saw Giserre and her son. Avender was glad this one was going to be different.
 
Redburr peered at the boy. Slovenly the Shaper was, and always hungry; but there wasn’t much that escaped his notice when he paid attention. And he had known Avender for most of the boy’s short life.
 
“It’s a good life we have in Valing, isn’t it?” he said.
 
Avender shrugged and kept brushing.
 
“What will you do when Reiffen goes away?”
 
The boy looked up. The bear was watching him carefully, his small, black eyes buttoned close upon him.
 
“Is Reiffen going away?” Avender asked.
 
“Giserre’s been talking about it more and more lately. He can’t live all his life in Valing. He has to go to Malmoret eventually.”
 
Avender stood still for a moment. When he went back to brushing Redburr’s coat his touch was harder, though the fur had already grown soft and glossy beneath his hand.
 
“Don’t tell me you and Reiffen haven’t talked about it,” the bear went on. “But you don’t need to worry. Giserre’ll take you with them if you ask her.”
 
Avender stopped in mid-stroke and looked hopefully at the bear. “You think so?”
 
Redburr raised his forepaws in a shrug. “You and Reiffen aren’t the only ones who’ve talked about it,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to Giserre. But convincing Hern’ll be much harder.”
 
“Why would she mind?”
 
“You’re her ward, for one thing. And she doesn’t particularly like the idea of Giserre and Reiffen going, either. She thinks it’s too dangerous. It’s only been two years since Brannis last tried to have Reiffen killed.”
 
Avender remembered that day all too well, Giserre raging in cold fury through the Manor and Redburr with dark red stains on his heavy paws. Not that anyone had ever seen fit to tell him or Reiffen the whole story.
 
“Hern can’t stop them if they want to go,” Avender said. He and Reiffen had spent many a long night talking about just that possibility. “Their people are in Malmoret and Rimwich. Not Valing.”
 
“No, she can’t,” the bear agreed. “But she can stop you. Your people are here, not there. And it’s one thing to be Reiffen’s fast friend in Valing and another altogether in Malmoret.”
 
Avender made no reply. He knew it was true. Whom their fathers had been meant little in Valing, but in Wayland and Banking it would mean much more. He just hoped Hern understood how miserable he would be if she didn’t let him go.
 
“How many times,” asked the Shaper, “did you knock Reiffen down the first time you met?”
 
Avender didn’t need to think to answer. Old Mortin and the other wags in the Manor still liked to tease both boys about the time someone had finally stood up to the young prince. “Five,” he said.
 
“And when was the last time you knocked him down?”
 
“I don’t know. A couple days ago, I guess. But that wasn’t a real fight. We were just wrestling. We haven’t had a real fight in years.”
 
“I didn’t say you had. Ahh, that feels good.” The bear arched his back as Avender scratched him just below the shoulder. “But if Hern does let you go south with Giserre, you’d better remember not to knock him down anymore, no matter how much he deserves it. You could find a sword at your throat for less, especially in Malmoret.”
 
“Then I’ll have to knock the swordsman down, too.”
 
The bear gave the boy a friendlier cuff than the first had been, but Avender was ready for him this time and jumped out of the way. Redburr laughed, his sharp teeth flashing. He was clean and dry now, his ruddy coat glowing after all of Avender’s attention.
 
“Go on,” the Shaper said. “Go get those mussels. I can taste the stew already. And tell Nolo when you find him, next time he should send Ferris.”
 
Avender didn’t have to be told twice. Without another word he threw down his brushes and bounded out of the den in search of his friends.
 
Copyright © 2006 by S. C. Butler

Excerpts

Chapter One

Bear and Boy
 
One warm spring day in Valing, a large, fat bear sunned himself on the gray stone of the Neck. His russet coat gleamed, sleek as a nokken’s: the long mountain winter didn’t seem to have bothered him at all. Half-asleep or half-awake, he lay comfortably between the orchard and the top of the cliff, where the scent of the apple blossoms was almost as lovely as the hum of the bees. Behind him the lake glistened a deep and sparkling blue. Except for a long plume of spray from the falls to the west, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
 
Beyond the orchard, however, the Manor was much more active. It was First Feast that night and everyone was busy with three more tasks than usual. The kitchen was filled with the bustle of crockery and cooking; men and women darted like bats on a summer evening across the long porches that looked out over the orchard. In the schoolroom, the children squirmed hopefully as tantalizing smells drifted in through the open windows from the scullery below.
 
Avender watched from his seat at the window as one of the undercooks rolled a barrel of slops into the yard. The pigs in the pen next door poked eager snouts through the fence and grunted at the fresh stains on the undercook’s apron. But, when Tinnet returned to the kitchen without feeding the hogs, Avender switched his attention back to the front of the schoolroom. Nolo was seated on the desk before the class that morning, instead of their regular teacher, and Avender was paying complete attention. He always listened when Nolo spoke, no matter how many times he had heard the story. That was because Nolo was a Dwarf, and Avender, along with everyone else in Valing, was always interested in anything having to do with Dwarves.
 
Sunshine streamed through the windows, brightening even the dull iron circlet Nolo used to hold back his wild gray hair. The younger children in the front row, not used to seeing the Dwarf so closely, stared at his broad, bare feet. Each toe looked like a knob of gnarled stone. But they were still quite clearly toes because every once in a while Nolo wiggled and stretched them or, if he had an itch, scratched between them with his equally stony fingers.
 
“Then what happened?” asked little Atty Peaks from the front row: Avender knew the younger boy was very much in awe of the Dwarf’s toes, because that was how he had felt at Atty’s age. Probably Atty had heard that Nolo could squeeze pebbles to dust between them, and was desperate to see him do it.
 
Nolo glowered good-naturedly at the small boy. “If you’d pay attention, lad,” he said, “and stop asking so many questions, you might hear what I’m saying.”
 
Half-smothered laughter swept through Atty’s classmates. The Dwarf looked up. Raising his heavy eyebrows at the older students in the back of the room, he warned, “None of that, now. Atty’s doing the best he can. He’s not heard the tale before. What he knows about Mennon or Wizards wouldn’t half-fill an ore car.”
 
The younger children, safe in the schoolroom on a beautiful spring day, shivered delightedly at the mention of Wizards. Avender and the older ones pretended not to care.
 
Away in the orchard the bear lifted his snout to sniff the breeze. Something much more delightful than the scent of apple blossoms was now drifting his way. His black nose wiggled. His small eyes opened. Heaving himself up from his comfortable rock, he began sniffing the air with real interest.
 
“Of course,” Nolo was saying back in the classroom, “Mennon was very interested in Issinlough when he woke. Only we Bryddin had ever seen our shining city before, or the Abyss, for that matter. When Mennon first learned to speak he went with Uhle to the bottom of the lowest tower in the city and pointed at the blackness below. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘Why, that’s the Abyss,’ Uhle answered. ‘How far is it to the bottom?’ Mennon wanted to know. ‘There is no bottom,’ said Uhle.”
 
“Is there really no bottom?” asked Atty.
 
Nolo shook his head. “No, lad, no bottom. Issinlough hangs on the underside of the world, and beyond Issinlough there’s nothing. Whatever’s left of Brydds himself might lie down there in the deep dark, but there’s no bottom to the Abyss.”
 
“And no sky, either?”
 
“No, no sky, either. We Bryddin never knew about the sky till Mennon told us, nor about the sun and moon. But once Uhle heard about them, nothing could keep him from finding the surface. ‘Brighter than the brightest of your lamps,’ was the way Mennon described the sun to us. ‘Brighter than all your lamps rolled into one.’ ” Nolo stroked his long beard thoughtfully for a moment before he went on.
 
“Uhle had always dreamed of such a light. He and I searched for it for years. But once he knew it existed, Uhle knew right away how to reach it. We might not have been able to go up the way Mennon had come down, but we could certainly dig our way to the surface once we knew it was there. As all of you know, we Bryddin are very good at digging.” He wiggled his fingers and stubby toes. Atty’s eyes widened.
 
“Was that the Sun Road?” asked a girl Avender’s age from the back of the class. Avender rolled his eyes, knowing she already knew the answer as well as he did.
 
“That’s what it is now, Ferris,” answered Nolo. “But when we first built it, it was hardly more than a long tunnel. We were in a hurry, at least those of us who took up the work. There are still some in Issinlough who wonder what we need with the sun and moon, let alone trees and flowers.”
 
“Or ale, right, Nolo?” teased a boy who sat to Avender’s left. Avender grinned. Teasing their regular teacher would have been unthinkable, but Nolo was a much easier master. The Dwarf himself laughed at the joke, his beard rolling in little waves across his chest.
 
“That’s right, lad. Mennon hadn’t told us a thing about ale yet. Perhaps if he had, we’d have dug a lot quicker.”
 
The whole class laughed. While they were laughing, a lumbering shape appeared in the yard below. The bear, following the scent he had sniffed out on the back of the breeze, had found his way from the orchard to the side of the sty. The pigs rushed back to the fence as soon as they saw him to snort and squeal at their old foe. They knew what he was up to as soon as he appeared. The bear, however, ignored the pigs completely.
 
But their squealing did attract the notice of the students closest to the windows above the yard. There was a quiet rustling among the desks as they shuffled about for better views. Avender poked his neighbor with his foot.
 
“Reiffen,” he whispered, nodding toward the window. “Redburr’s at the slops again.”
 
The other boy’s eyebrows rose with interest. Carefully he stretched across the desks for a better view.
 
At the front of the room Nolo continued his tale, completely unaware of the activity at the windows. “Can anyone tell me,” he asked, “where we Bryddin were when we finally broke out onto the surface? No, not you, Ferris. You can’t answer every question. Let’s hear from one of the younger lads or lasses who haven’t heard the tale before. All right, Nell, why don’t you tell us.”
 
Nell stood up straight and tall at her desk beside Atty, very proud of her opportunity. “Um, was it Grangore?” she asked.
 
“Absolutely correct!” Nolo slapped his thigh hard, almost causing the legs on the desk to give out below him. Nell beamed.
 
At the pigsty, the great bear rested his forepaws on the rim of the slops barrel and stuffed his heavy head inside. The barrel wobbled but didn’t fall. On the other side of the fence the angry pigs began digging furiously as they tried to get at the thief beyond the railing. Contented grunts echoed from inside the wooden barrel.
 
“It was a beautiful evening,” the Dwarf was saying to the class, “the first evening I ever saw. We came out on the middle slopes of Aloslocin, and the sun was just beginning to set behind Ivismundra. Uhle came out first, but it was a while before he returned for the rest of us. We were afraid of coming up beneath a lake or a river, you see, and had dammed off the upper end of the tunnel. Then we had to take another minute after Uhle pulled down the dam to put on our goggles, just in case the sun was too bright for our eyes. Here, I brought mine in to class today so everyone could have a look. Cut the lenses from a large topaz, I did.”
 
He handed a pair of heavy goggles to Atty, who dropped them, he was so overwhelmed by the honor. Meanwhile the bear had snuffled down all the easy pickings at the top of the barrel and had twisted around on his hind legs to improve his leverage into the tub. Several times he came close to losing his balance, but each time he shifted to the side at the last second and caught himself before the barrel tipped.
 
“That’s real batwing.” Nolo pointed out the goggle straps, while those pupils still paying attention to him carefully handed them around the classroom. “Very soft and strong, batwing. No lighter leather to be found, under sun or ground. There’s a little stretch in it, too, so they fit tight around your head. Say, what are you all looking at out the window there? Avender? Reiffen?”
 
Nolo had finally noticed that most of the class was gathered around the windows and no longer even pretending to pay attention to him. Not wanting to miss out on whatever was happening in the yard below, he hopped off the desk and hurried across the room.
 
“Not again.” He groaned when he saw the backside of the bear sticking up out of the barrel. Leaning out over the sill on his tiptoes, he called down to the alley, “Hey there! Redburr! Get out of there, you overgrown raccoon! You know better than that!”
 
By this time the bear had climbed all the way up onto the top of the barrel, his head and shoulders crammed greedily inside. He was in no position to hear anyone’s scolding. The barrel was very strong, but the bear was very heavy. Both rocked back and forth precariously as the bear shoveled through the dainties within. But that balancing act was too delicate to last more than a moment. The tub teetered, then toppled with a crash. Several smaller barrels nearby were also smashed as Redburr was thrown crashing on top of them and through the fence around the sty. A pair of fish heads and half a moldy cabbage flew high into the air. Shining in the sun, they floated for a moment right in front of the schoolroom windows, then splashed back down in the dirty alley below.
 
Briefly the bear lay stunned in a pile of slops, barrel staves, and fencing. Flecks of broccoli and yesterday’s gravy speckled his ruddy coat. Then the pigs were on him. He rose up with half an old cheese in his mouth and clubbed a few of the more vicious sows with a swing from each of his heavy forepaws. Piglets squealed as they streamed through the hole in the fence. The alley was filled with guzzling hogs and slippery bear, all fighting over the same hunks of grease and filthy vegetables. They careened back and forth in the buttery mess, bashing fresh holes in the fence and sending the rain barrel at the corner of the kitchen flying. The water sluiced out across the ground beneath them; everything was soon churned to mud by their scuffling.
 
The door to the kitchen flew open. Hern herself stormed out, her stoutest broom in hand. Her first shout brought Redburr immediately to his senses. Hastily he scrambled to his feet and shouldered the heaviest sow aside. Then he took off back down the alley toward the orchard with all the speed he could muster, a rotten pumpkin bumping on his backside, his prize cheese still dripping in his mouth.
 
“That’s right!” called Nolo from the window, barely able to contain his laughter. “You run away! As if we haven’t all seen you at your work already!”
 
Hern shook her broom and shouted in turn, “You great fat rug! I’ve told you a hundred times to keep out of the slops! How’re we supposed to get any bacon! I’m going to ban you from the feast tonight, I am!”
 
She turned and stared at the rest of the kitchen staff, who had come out behind her to enjoy the show.
 
“And what are you all gaping at?” she demanded. She stood with hands on hips, even though she was still holding her broom. “Get these pigs back in the pen! We’re behind as it is! We’ll never be ready for tonight! And which one of you put that cheese in with the rest of the garbage? Was that you, Tinnet? You know that fool of a bear can’t control himself when he gets a whiff of spoiled cheese! You’d better get to work cleaning up this mess before I really lose my temper!”
 
Plowing straight into the middle of the hogs, she kicked left and right and batted at them with both ends of her broom. The sows fled in terror, grunting as they scrambled back to the safety of their pen, but a few of the piglets managed to escape. They tore off into the orchard with the kitchen staff chasing behind. The children cheered them on.
 
Hern looked up at the schoolroom. Her eyes narrowed. Every student in sight ducked back inside before she could light into any of them in turn. Nolo wisely followed their example.
 
He retrieved his goggles from where they had been dropped on the floor and said, “I guess that’s the end of this lesson.” The students gave another cheer. “Maybe you should all report downstairs to Hern. I think she’s going to need all the help she can get catching those pigs.”
 
Another cheer went up, louder than the first, especially from the younger children. Much as everyone liked hearing the Dwarf tell them stories of the Stoneways, chasing pigs was even better. No one waited to be dismissed; they fled through the desks and out the door in a clatter of shoes and shouts of glee.
 
Avender, however, wasn’t so lucky. Nolo caught his arm as he was on his way out the door. Reiffen and Ferris saw it all, and ducked away before they were stopped as well.
 
“I need you,” said the Dwarf.
 
“You let everyone else go!” Avender knew what was coming, but Nolo’s grip was far too strong for him to twist away. “Reiffen and I are supposed to go get mussels from Longback.”
 
“The mussels can wait.” Nolo’s eyes twinkled beneath his bushy brows. “The Shaper needs you more. Someone has to help him clean up before the feast, lad. And you’re the one to do it.”
 
Avender groaned. Grooming a filthy bear was the last thing he wanted to do.
 
“I’ve another job I promised Hern I’d help with,” the Dwarf went on, “or I’d take care of him myself. Then I could give him the thumping he needs. Now go on and do as I’ve asked. There may be something in it for you later, if you do.”
 
Avender shuffled off. There was no use hoping he would not be able to find the bear. He had lived his entire life at the Manor and knew every rambling inch of the place, from the highest garret to the deepest cellar. And there were really only a few places Redburr was likely to go. Once the Shaper started to think straight—and there was every chance he had, now that Hern had shocked some sense back into him—he would probably head down to the lake to bathe. Redburr, with his bottomless appetite, looked forward to First Feast as much as anyone; he knew Hern would never allow him in unless he was completely clean. Otherwise he had a tendency to overexcite the dogs. And the quickest way to the lake was through the cellars and down the long stair to the lower dock at the bottom of the cliff.
 
From the hall outside the schoolroom Avender could still hear the uproar in the yard. Reluctantly he turned away and headed for the cellars. Redburr’s most likely route downstairs would be through the back of the house, on the other side of the Great Hall. There was no way he would have risked going through the kitchen to face Hern and her broom again. Sure enough, the boy began to find bits and pieces from the slop barrel on the floor as he neared the back stair. He picked the fallen garbage up as he found it, knowing he would just be sent back to finish the job if he neglected to take care of it now.
 
The messy trail continued down to the busy cellars. It looked like everyone in the Manor, and not a few from Eastbay and the nearer farms, were carrying sacks of smoked fish and sides of bacon, or rolling great cheese wheels and casks of ale and cider along the stone floors between bushel baskets of cabbages and carrots.
 
More than a few of them laughed when they saw the boy. “After the bear, are you?” they called. “Well, you won’t miss him, that’s sure enough. What a stench!”
 
Ignoring them, Avender hurried on through the stone storerooms. The stair to the lower dock had been cut from the Neck and spiraled down through the rock to the lake, many fathoms below. Lighting the lamp that stood ready at the top of the steps, the boy peered into the darkness. A faint smell of rotten cheese and sodden fur greeted him, but no sound drifted up from the cold stone. The bear would not have bothered with a lamp and was probably already at the bottom.
 
Avender started down, light in hand. His long legs threw tramping shadows along the wall beside him. But he didn’t have far to go. After the second or third turn he heard the click of the bear’s claws on the stone ahead. “Redburr?” he called, cupping his free hand to his mouth. “It’s me, Avender. If you’re coming up fast you’d better slow down or you’ll run me over.”
 
The clicking slowed, then stopped completely. A moment later Redburr’s muzzle appeared hesitantly around the curve below, followed by the rest of his shaggy head, now dripping wet. His eyes gleamed in the lamplight. For a moment he looked more like a red-wooled sheep than a bear.
 
“Nolo sent me,” said the boy.
 
“Nolo? Is he mad at me, too?”
 
The fancy that Redburr was a sheep disappeared as soon as he spoke. His deep voice rumbled out from his furry chest like a rock slide tumbling out the mouth of a cave.
 
“What do you think?” answered Avender.
 
“You think Hern’s really going to ban me from the feast?”
 
“So you heard that?” The boy picked a piece of soggy turnip out of the tangled fur at the top of the bear’s massive head. His hand was only a little larger than Redburr’s ear. “You should’ve stayed for your punishment. Now she’s just going to brood, and that’ll make it worse.”
 
“You think I should go take what’s coming to me?”
 
Avender shook his head. “It’s too late. Now you’re better off staying out of her way till tonight. Then, if you’re lucky, she’ll be so busy she’ll forget all about you.”
 
Redburr nodded, his great head swinging through a much larger arc than any human’s. Then he noticed the water dripping from his fur had begun to pool on the stair. Extending his long red tongue, he began to lap it up. Avender added the turnip to the mix, then turned and started back toward the cellars. Behind him there was a quick gulping sound, followed by the padding of heavy paws and the click of claws on stone.
 
There were a few snickers as they passed back through the cellars, but not many. The bear was too big, and too honored, to be made fun of for doing what was natural enough for him. He hadn’t hibernated since arriving in Valing almost ten years ago and, though he could go without hibernation for a long time, the lack of a good, long sleep sometimes confused him. Occasionally he forgot he was living with humans and not deep in the mountain woods, usually when he was around food. But in the end Redburr, who was always very sorry afterward when he forgot himself, was too important to be sent away. He was, after all, a Shaper. Even King Brannis would put up with him if Redburr ever took it into his head to spend ten years in Rimwich.
 
Together, bear and boy climbed up through the Manor to Redburr’s den. Avender thought it wise to keep to the back of the house, as the bear was still dripping and any extra damage to carpets or polished floors would only be added to both their accounts. When they finally reached the top of the house, Redburr crossed straight through the litter of old logs and empty beehives that filled his room to stand at the window with his front paws on the sill, where the strong breeze could ruffle his wet fur. Avender hurried to find the combs and brushes among the husks of bread and stolen jam pots on the floor. If the bear’s fur dried before he got to work, untangling it would be impossible.
 
He saw clouds in the sky when he joined Redburr at the window. In the distance mountains marched down both sides of the lake. Patches of gray shadow skimmed across the dark blue surface along with puffs of sail. Avender reminded himself that the sooner he was done, the sooner he would be able to go out on the lake with Ferris and Reiffen.
 
He turned to the bear’s shaggy coat. As he had feared, the fur was already matted in great tangles and sticky tufts. Choice reminders of Redburr’s foraging remained despite his plunge in the lake. The boy set to work currying the thick fur back into some semblance of respectability. Occasionally Redburr asked for an extra scratch or two on his back or belly, and pointed out every time Avender missed a particularly sticky patch. When he had been smaller, Avender had delighted in plunging his hand and face into the thickets of the bear’s pelt, and welcomed any chance to rub him down after a swim. But now that Avender was older, he saw it only for the work it was.
 
“You could at least have used some soap,” he said as he worked the remains of one of that morning’s muffins off the bear’s hip.
 
“Old Mortin wouldn’t lend me any. He said he wouldn’t be able to use it himself once I was through with it.” Scratching his stomach with his enormous claws, the bear grumbled as Avender pulled the comb hard through a patch on his shoulder that seemed glued together. “I wish Nolo’d sent Ferris up instead of you. She doesn’t pull half my fur out with each pass. Ow!”
 
He cuffed the boy out of the way, not quite gently, and went to work on the troublesome spot with claws and tongue.
 
“You know,” said Avender as he moved to a safer position, “if you’d stop rooting around in the slops you wouldn’t have to go through this.”
 
“Maybe that’s why I do it, boy,” replied the bear, licking away at his sticky fur. “I like rooting around in slops. I am a bear, you know. Mmm. I think I remember that bit.”
 
“You don’t always act like a bear. And other bears can’t talk.”
 
“You know better than that. I’m the bear of bears. Even when I change into something else I’m still really a bear.” As he spoke, a fly buzzed in through the window. Redburr snapped his great jaws at it without even thinking. Large, sharp teeth that might have bitten Avender’s arm in two closed with a loud crunch.
 
“It’d be a lot easier for the rest of us if you’d just be human for the party tonight.” The boy flicked some soggy mushrooms on the floor as the bear turned to let him groom the finer fur at his throat. Redburr eyed the mushrooms for a moment before deciding to leave them for later. “Then you could clean yourself up. And you know how nervous those traders from Lugger get when they see a bear sitting next to them at dinner.”
 
“Let them be nervous.” Redburr rubbed a heavy paw across his nose. “I can eat more when I’m a bear. And I’ve got that trip into the mountains tomorrow with Ranner. If I bothered to change now I’d just have to change back again. You know too much shifting wears me out. It’ll do those bead sellers good to rub elbows with Mother Nature for a few hours.”
 
Avender combed on without saying anything more. Had it been Ferris doing the grooming, the conversation would never have lagged for a moment. And Reiffen would have asked questions about history and places in the world he had never been. But Avender worked quietly and steadily untangling this knot and unraveling that. After a while the bear began to hum.
 
“What song is that?” asked the boy.
 
“A new one I heard part of the other night.” Redburr began peeling long strips of wood off one of the old logs that lay scattered about the room.
 
“Was that when you and Nolo came home drunk from the Bass and Bull?”
 
“We weren’t drunk. You can’t get a Bryddin drunk. And there isn’t enough ale at the Bass to get me drunk.”
 
“Ferris said you were drunk.”
 
“How would Ferris know? She didn’t see us come home.”
 
“No, but they were talking about it in the kitchen the next day. And there were those broken benches in the front hall.” Avender picked some pumpkin seeds off the bear’s back. Somehow they had burrowed into his fur and had to be rooted out like rocks from a garden.
 
“That wasn’t me,” said the bear. “That was Nolo. He wasn’t paying attention when he sat down. He knows those benches aren’t strong enough to hold him.”
 
“Who sang it?”
 
“Who sang what?”
 
“The song you were humming.”
 
“Oh, that. That was Mindrell. A rhymer from the north.”
 
“Is he going to sing tonight?”
 
“He’s supposed to.” Redburr raised his head and growled in his deep, rough voice:
 
“Beyond the west, beyond the night;
 
Beyond the waning of the light . . .”
 
He stopped and licked his nose. “ ‘Mennon’s Ride,’ he called it. Said he’d give us more tonight if we asked him to the feast.”
 
Avender combed silently through a patch thick with butter and gravy on the bear’s flank. Most rhymers who came to Valing tended to sing “The Fall of Ablen” once they saw Giserre and her son. Avender was glad this one was going to be different.
 
Redburr peered at the boy. Slovenly the Shaper was, and always hungry; but there wasn’t much that escaped his notice when he paid attention. And he had known Avender for most of the boy’s short life.
 
“It’s a good life we have in Valing, isn’t it?” he said.
 
Avender shrugged and kept brushing.
 
“What will you do when Reiffen goes away?”
 
The boy looked up. The bear was watching him carefully, his small, black eyes buttoned close upon him.
 
“Is Reiffen going away?” Avender asked.
 
“Giserre’s been talking about it more and more lately. He can’t live all his life in Valing. He has to go to Malmoret eventually.”
 
Avender stood still for a moment. When he went back to brushing Redburr’s coat his touch was harder, though the fur had already grown soft and glossy beneath his hand.
 
“Don’t tell me you and Reiffen haven’t talked about it,” the bear went on. “But you don’t need to worry. Giserre’ll take you with them if you ask her.”
 
Avender stopped in mid-stroke and looked hopefully at the bear. “You think so?”
 
Redburr raised his forepaws in a shrug. “You and Reiffen aren’t the only ones who’ve talked about it,” he said. “I’ve already spoken to Giserre. But convincing Hern’ll be much harder.”
 
“Why would she mind?”
 
“You’re her ward, for one thing. And she doesn’t particularly like the idea of Giserre and Reiffen going, either. She thinks it’s too dangerous. It’s only been two years since Brannis last tried to have Reiffen killed.”
 
Avender remembered that day all too well, Giserre raging in cold fury through the Manor and Redburr with dark red stains on his heavy paws. Not that anyone had ever seen fit to tell him or Reiffen the whole story.
 
“Hern can’t stop them if they want to go,” Avender said. He and Reiffen had spent many a long night talking about just that possibility. “Their people are in Malmoret and Rimwich. Not Valing.”
 
“No, she can’t,” the bear agreed. “But she can stop you. Your people are here, not there. And it’s one thing to be Reiffen’s fast friend in Valing and another altogether in Malmoret.”
 
Avender made no reply. He knew it was true. Whom their fathers had been meant little in Valing, but in Wayland and Banking it would mean much more. He just hoped Hern understood how miserable he would be if she didn’t let him go.
 
“How many times,” asked the Shaper, “did you knock Reiffen down the first time you met?”
 
Avender didn’t need to think to answer. Old Mortin and the other wags in the Manor still liked to tease both boys about the time someone had finally stood up to the young prince. “Five,” he said.
 
“And when was the last time you knocked him down?”
 
“I don’t know. A couple days ago, I guess. But that wasn’t a real fight. We were just wrestling. We haven’t had a real fight in years.”
 
“I didn’t say you had. Ahh, that feels good.” The bear arched his back as Avender scratched him just below the shoulder. “But if Hern does let you go south with Giserre, you’d better remember not to knock him down anymore, no matter how much he deserves it. You could find a sword at your throat for less, especially in Malmoret.”
 
“Then I’ll have to knock the swordsman down, too.”
 
The bear gave the boy a friendlier cuff than the first had been, but Avender was ready for him this time and jumped out of the way. Redburr laughed, his sharp teeth flashing. He was clean and dry now, his ruddy coat glowing after all of Avender’s attention.
 
“Go on,” the Shaper said. “Go get those mussels. I can taste the stew already. And tell Nolo when you find him, next time he should send Ferris.”
 
Avender didn’t have to be told twice. Without another word he threw down his brushes and bounded out of the den in search of his friends.
 
Copyright © 2006 by S. C. Butler

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Excerpted from Reiffen's Choice by S. C. Butler
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.