She was, suddenly. Her stomach cramped with hunger. How long had it been?
“We have only a short way to walk,” Falk said. “Come.” Once more he held out his hand, and once more she took it. He led her upslope beside the stream, with its laughing waters, and after a time they came out of the trees to a grassy bowl centered by a pond. “There,” he said. “Walk into the water, my daughter, just as you are, and bring back what you find.”
Dorrin looked at the water—limpid, crystalline. She could see all the way to the bottom … see water plants waving in the current from the springs there, the sand disturbed by the uprising water. She looked at Falk, who said nothing, waiting for her response.
Well. He was her patron; she wore—she had worn—his ruby. She walked to the edge and took a step into the pool, then another. The water drew her in; she sank into it, and as she did, she felt its life enfolding her. Down, down … she looked up for a moment at the silvery wavering surface and then down again. What was she supposed to bring back? Her feet touched the sand, tickled by the water plants … Her boots had disappeared, and as she realized that, she knew her clothes had disappeared as well. A box lay at her feet that had not been there a moment before. She crouched to look at it, picked it up, and the water lifted her to the surface, to the pool’s very margin.
She stepped out, holding the box, and almost stumbled as she discovered that she was dry, clothed in brown like Falk, with comfortable boots on her feet. Falk smiled at her. “Let me have the box, Daughter.”
She handed him the box and stepped back; it opened in his hands, expanding as it did, and he took from it a red belt, a red length of ribbon, and a stone that flashed in the sunlight.
“Come here, Daughter.”
Dorrin took a step toward him; he took the ruby and pressed it to her forehead. “No one can take it from you,” he said. “And now—let us eat.” He sat down and took from the box a loaf of bread, a round of cheese, an onion, a length of sausage, and a plain-hilted dagger in its sheath. “Every wanderer needs a knife,” he said, handing it to her. Then he took out a mug, heavy pottery glazed green, and set it between them. By this time Dorrin was not surprised to see that it held liquid.
She cut rounds from the sausage and wedges from the cheese while he broke the loaf of bread. They ate, sharing the watered wine in the mug, passing it back and forth. As they did, the shadows lengthened; though midday had seemed to last a long time, now the sun moved quickly. Falk pulled a blanket from the box. Dorrin was past wondering what else the box might yield—a sword and full suit of armor? a horse?—and took the blanket he handed her.
“It is safe to sleep here, Daughter, and you are tired. Take your rest.”
Darkness fell even as she wrapped herself in the blanket, and she slid into sleep. In the morning, she woke refreshed to find the green mug full of water beside her, along with a fresh loaf of bread. Falk was nowhere to be seen, but she heard a deep voice singing over in the trees.
That day they talked again. “You might have died,” Falk said, “but you did not. I might have died, and I did not. What I did changed me, as you are changed, and I had to find a way to live different than both my lives before, my early life as a prince and my life as a slave. So you must find a way to live that fits who you are now, not who you were.”
“You think I should not go back to Verrakai domain? Even to Tsaia?”
He shrugged. “Maybe … or maybe not. What matters now is that you are true to your real self, the self you are now, that grew out of the self you were. Can a gold ring go back to being specks of gold in ore?”
“It can be melted into a lump.”
He laughed. “So it can, Daughter, so it can. And one thing the same with you is that sharp mind. But can it put itself as a vein or as specks back into the mountain from which it came?”
“No,” Dorrin said. “I see … but I am no gold ring, all one kind of stuff.”
“You are human stuff,” Falk said. “Not half elf or half dwarf or half anything. All human.”
“And human stuff is …?” she asked, grinning now herself.
“Capable of choice,” he said. “For among humans is the greatest diversity. The Elders were made each for mastery of one suite of arts, but among humans are minstrels and bards for song, smiths for working metal, masons for working rock, farmers for nurturing plants and animals.” He smiled at her. “And that, Daughter, is why I offer you choice—the gift given humans of which arts to choose. You may choose to go back to the life you had—or as much as you can salvage after your time away—or choose a different one. I am here, among other reasons, to help you find the choice you want most.”