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Under the Golden Mists

By Sarah Glover Byrd

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One
The Root Forest


Tarth’s Root Forest had more than its share of roots, and though some of them grew underground, enough erupted above the forest floor to make walking difficult. Lacht didn’t care. She didn’t want to leave.
She grimaced to keep from crying, not that anyone in her group would have noticed. They’d all turned their backs to her, but that didn’t mean she wanted to move away from them.
“So you see,” she told the gray hair curling down five young teenagers’ backs, “Keshua wants us to love each other.”
The girls and boys, peering through gaps in the roots around them, didn’t respond.
They wanted to see the guide from Stalli who had arrived late last night to take Lacht’s family away. The Stalli family who had lived so long in the Root Forest looked strange—everyone knew that—but did all Stallis look that way or was it only their friends.

Lacht rolled her eyes and thought about scolding them. After all, she was eighteen years old now, a young woman and the leader of the group; however, if she stayed quiet and stepped to the left, she could see through an unoccupied gap.
One step and the gap was claimed, but she did start counting inside her mind.
One, two...forty-six, forty-seven, forty….
“Oh, Lacht,” asked Softbark finally in the Root people’s guttural language, “are you done?”
“Ye-e-e-s,” Lacht drawled the Root word out slowly, with a trace of sternness in her voice.
Softbark was one of her favorite Root girls, but she thought the group should know they had not paid proper attention.
“Good,” commented Graybark, Softbark’s younger brother, without turning. “You were distracting me.”
Lacht shook her head at Graybark’s back, but a smile almost formed on the corners of her lips—almost, but not quite.
Soggy faces did not smile, and she had cried so much over the last two weeks that not only her face, but part of her neck felt waterlogged.
Early that morning, she’d slipped out of the family root cave, deliberately escaping the last day of packing. She’d done her share of the work up till then, but someone else could carry the heavy bags to the forest edge.
That Stalli guide could carry them.
She had not wanted to meet the man on her last morning in the Root Forest. She’d known she wouldn’t like him.
Why was she spying on him anyway?
“I think I should go home,” she said, but just then Mosslimb waved a big hand right in her face.
“He is here!”
Root people didn’t get excited often, but when they did, their excitement spread as quickly as moss on the damp forest floor. Lacht peered through her gap and saw her stepfather walking with a young man toward their cave.
Winnel always kept his hair long enough to tie back with a string because, he’d announced many times, he could cut the whole thing with two or three snips of the scissors. Gray hairs had begun mingling with the darker ones now, but Lacht didn’t give Winnel more than a cursory glance, not with the guide from Stalli walking right next to him.
The young man had his back to her, but that didn’t hide his broad shoulders. All Stallis had either black or dark brown hair, but this man’s black hair, trimmed evenly about his ears, was unusually thick. When he turned her way, she caught her breath and grabbed hold of the nearest root.
She’d never seen a more attractive man.
The Root teens cast sideways glances at each other. Several of them shrugged.
“He is probably nice,” commented Softbark kindly.
“Is he a grownup?” asked Graybark. “What happened to him?”
“Shhh,” cautioned Mosslimb. “They must all be like that.”
Root Forest people never cut their gray curly hair. Both men and women wore it long down their backs, but it wasn’t the newcomer’s short black hair that had prompted the group’s negative reaction. Root people had adjusted to Stalli hair years ago.
“Berries like berries,” Lacht remarked casually.
She knew exactly what had caused the sideways glances and shrugs. Her friends still could not understand why Stallis had such weak little hands and feet. Stalli heads were small too.
“Plums like plums,” she continued in the same relaxed voice.
The Root teenagers cocked their big heads to one side and stared at her.
“I do not think that is true,” Graybark disagreed. “We like berries and plums, but they do not like each other. How can they? They are not alive!”
Usually, she explained herself with great patience to her friends. Tonight, she didn’t want to take the time.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, swinging herself between two roots and sliding down another.
“Berries do not like plums either,” one of the girls whispered behind her. “They do not like anything at all.”
That made a smile quirk again on the corners of Lacht’s mouth, as she approached the roots that formed her home. The men had already gone in, and she brushed quickly past the vine entrance.

Irsht must have run away from the last day of packing too, because Winnel had just finished introducing her to the Stalli guide. Lacht had never seen her little sister’s eyes open that wide, almost Root-people wide. Irsht wasn’t asking questions either, which indicated shock of no mean proportions.
Raising her chin an inch, the older girl braced herself not to show the same reaction. They’d only visited Stalli once, years ago. She and Irsht hadn’t seen many Stalli men, that was all.
“Here’s my older daughter,” said Winnel, turning to put an arm around her shoulder. “Crispin, I’d like you to meet Lacht.”
Crispin’s eyes lit up, and he smiled broadly, showing unusually straight teeth that added to his attractiveness. Most Stalli teeth grew slightly crooked. Some grew greatly crooked, and Frenne had taught her girls to thank the Great One for their own straight teeth.
Quit thinking about teeth!
“Winnel, I will enjoy taking your family across the desert,” the young man in front of Lacht stated, one of his hands making an elaborate half-circle in the air.
“Everyone in the Stalli Mountain Range will applaud me, I am sure, for bringing two such lovely girls to our country!”
The sisters glanced at each other, and Lacht knew that Irsht didn’t know what to say anymore than she did. They’d never received compliments on their appearance. Root people felt sorry for them, even the ones that loved them, and Winnel and Frenne never spoke about a person’s looks.
Frenne saved the situation by calling them to supper. Even in the midst of her confused feelings, Lacht nodded appreciatively at the table as she sat in her chair. She enjoyed color.
Mallowberry juice mixed with strawberry cider turned the glasses in front of each plate a bright red-orange. A blue vegetable casserole sat at one end of the table, while a platter full of the fried pinkplant fritters Irsht and Lacht always requested, sat at the other. In the middle, yellowbud potatoes, mashed and buttered, flanked a beautifully browned turkey.
Someone must have given them the turkey. Frenne could hunt quite well, but she rarely wanted to take the time, and she had certainly not taken it on their last day of packing. Lacht had expected the normal melvefish, caught in the family fish trap.
No melvefish tonight, she thought, feeling her mouth water as she sniffed the aroma of roasted turkey.
“What’s this?” asked Crispin, putting a fritter on his plate. “It smells delicious, but I don’t think I’ve ever had it.”
“Root people call it pinkplant,” Frenne answered.
“Umm, pinkplant tastes as good as it smells,” he announced after the first mouthful, “although I’m sure the cook knew exactly how to create such a wonderful flavor.”
“Thank you,” Frenne responded demurely enough, but Lacht saw the glitter of amusement in her mother’s eyes.
The eighteen-year-old shifted in her chair, her thoughts jumping unexpectedly to their guest’s defense. What’s wrong with complimenting people? It’s just a form of encouragement! We should do it more often ourselves.
Irsht had recovered from her uncharacteristic shyness.
“Will you tell us about Stalli?” she asked their guest. “We visited a long time ago, but I don’t remember much.”
“Stalli is the most beautiful country on Tarth,” Crispin announced with another hand flourish.
“I’m sure the Muntas and Paigens would disagree with you,” Winnel commented.
“As would our own Root people,” Frenne added.
The glitter of amusement had spread from Frenne’s eyes to her cheeks now, displaying both dimples.
Nothing daunted, Crispin countered, “Yes, but we have more mountains than they do—Stalli is all mountains! Our northern ranges spear the clouds. Snow covers their high peaks even in the summer, while winter brings a frenzy of wild blizzards and below-zero temperatures.”
Irsht’s eyes had expanded to Root-people size again, and he smiled at her.
“Don’t worry, little maiden; Stallis live in the southern mountains, where we welcome both the green of winter snows and the blue of summer leaves. The richest blue grass on Tarth abounds in Stalli’s southern ranges. Our horses thrive on it.”
He had lost her.
“I am not a little maiden!” Irsht stated, a pucker taking over her lips. “I’m almost sixteen!”
“My pardon,” he responded promptly and bowed his head in acknowledgement of his error.
She nodded forgiveness, and Frenne urged her youngest daughter to pass the mashed potatoes and gravy to Winnel.
During that brief interval, Crispin glanced at Lacht and winked. Lacht almost laughed out loud but stopped herself in time. She didn’t want to hurt Irsht’s feelings—but a heady feeling rushed over her, and she didn’t know what to do with her hands.
Their guide served himself a second helping of the mashed potatoes when the bowl came his way, covered the potatoes with gravy, and then leaned back in his chair. “Our Wise Ones received your letter from the Munta travelers and sent me to escort you to our village, situated on the shores of the most beautiful lake in Tarth. I must warn you, however. The water of our lake becomes green only when boiled. All other Stalli lakes are the normal green, but our lake is gold with golden mists that rise daily above its surface.”
“Why is it different?” asked Irsht almost before he had finished his last sentence.
“No one knows. At least, no Stalli know. Perhaps the inhabitants under the lake could tell us, but no one has heard from them for many years—not until two weeks ago, the day before I left to cross the desert.”
“You‘ve heard from the Wasandra?” blurted out Frenne, her eyebrows shooting up to the middle of her forehead.
Crispin’s eyebrows mirrored his hostess’s. “You know about the Wasandra?”
She nodded at him, partially recovering from the surprise his words had given her. “My grandmother grew up in your Stalli village. That’s one of the reasons we want to live there…that and the fact that Burkin Village needs a rope maker. My grandmother often spoke of the mysterious Wasandra of Wasso Lake, but she’d never seen one of them.”
“No communication has existed between us for three generations,” he agreed.
Irsht broke into their conversation. “Wait a minute. Back up, please. Who are the Wasandra? How could they live under a lake—and if nobody has seen them, how do you know they’re there?”
Everyone smiled at the fifteen year old’s matter-of-fact attitude.
Her mother answered. “Let me, Crispin. We haven’t given you time to eat.”
Lacht lifted one eyebrow, then lowered it quickly before anyone could see her involuntary response. The young man had seconds on his plate of everything, plus a large serving of blueberry cobbler waiting in a side bowl. Nevertheless, good manners meant not making a guest do all the talking.
Frenne was a stickler for good manners.
“Stallis settled Burkin Village on the shores of Wasso Lake over two hundred years ago,” she told her girls. “At first, the Wasandra came out of their lake and made friends. They could visit with other people, because they breathed air as easily as they breathed water.”
“Nobody breathes water,” objected Irsht immediately. She had quit eating so that she could process this information. Irsht loved to learn new things.
“Well, I don’t know what they do then,” amended Frenne, “but they live under the surface of the lake. The water doesn’t buoy them up as it does us. They can walk or run through the lake as if it were dry land—or so I’ve heard. We Stallis have become ignorant over the years.”
Crispin had demolished his food by this time. He pushed back from the table and raised one hand in what the family already recognized as a habitual gesture. “Our ignorance may have come to an end!" he informed them with relish.
Obviously, he was one of those people who enjoyed telling news. Lacht kept her mouth tightly closed. Her lips wanted to open with excitement, and, if they opened, she felt unsure about her breathing.
Act your age!
“The day before I left to cross the desert, someone lifted the flag on the old message box,” the young man announced.
Frenne gasped and Irsht opened her mouth, but Crispin answered the obvious question before she had time to ask it.
“When their friendship began to deteriorate, our ancestors built a pier and hung a small, water-resistant box at its end. Stallis and Wasandra left messages in the box instead of visiting, but even that custom died out over time. You can imagine how we felt when we saw the flag upright again.”
He paused for dramatic effect, and Lacht had to restrain herself again from laughing out loud. Irsht knew no restraint.
“What did the message say?” she demanded impatiently.
“They’ve lost one of their children!” their guide announced.
Winnel jumped out of his chair. “Lost one of their children—how terrible!” he said, groaning as if the missing child belonged to him.
Lacht’s eyes softened.
Neither she nor Irsht ever thought of Winnel as their stepfather. He’d loved them as daughters from the day he and Frenne married, and he loved the peoples of Tarth in much the same way, never concentrating on the differences between them, only on what they had in common.
“They asked if we had seen the child, an eleven-year-old girl,” Crispin continued. “No one had, of course, and our wise ones placed a reply in the message box. They wouldn’t let us on the pier, but my friends and I kept watch from the shore. The hours became tedious, but when the Wasandra finally returned, we were glad we had waited.”
“Poor parents,” Winnel spoke again, still standing beside his chair, but the girls didn’t want to think about the poor parents just then.
“What did they look like?” they asked at the same time.
“Well,” Crispin murmured. “They didn’t come completely out of the water, which is, I might add, fourteen feet deep at the end of the pier. A long, pale arm reached from the water to the box and opened it with fingers that appeared to be twice as long as our fingers. That was all we saw, but it was enough! Burkin Villagers have begun keeping their children away from the lake’s edge, especially at night when the mists creep up the shore.”
Lacht and Irsht stared wide-eyed at him, but Winnel sat down abruptly, his face held in place as if he were keeping himself from frowning by deliberate willpower.
“Keshua created all peoples on Tarth,” he insisted. “We must not judge the Wasandra by their appearance.”
Lacht changed positions in her chair again. She agreed with her father in theory, but he needn’t sound so rigid. “How exciting!” she said hurriedly.
“Yes, it was,” Crispin agreed with her, “and who can say what we’ll find when we return?”
“Is there an empty cottage in Burkin Village?” questioned Frenne, and the conversation shifted toward their move and new home.

Later that night, as the sisters prepared for bed in their small bedroom, they talked about the story Crispin had told them.
“An underwater people, of all things!” Irsht remarked happily.
“Where did that eleven-year-old girl go?” wondered Lacht. “She couldn’t have come out of the lake. Someone would have seen her and reacted.”
“I’d say!” agreed Irsht. “You would’ve heard my reaction all the way back to the Root Forest.”
Lacht started to say something about not responding negatively to people because they looked different, but she closed her lips tightly. She didn’t want to sound like Winnel.
“Well, they’ll probably find her before we get there,” she said instead.
Irsht’s face fell. “Do you think so?” she asked with evident disappointment.
“It’ll take two weeks,” Lacht reminded her. “If we didn’t live on this side of the Root Forest, it would take longer.”
“Yes, yes,” the younger girl responded, yawning, “but still, I want to see that golden lake; don’t you?”
“Umm hmm,” Lacht answered absently.
The move didn’t upset her as much now that she’d decided to like their guide. Lacht rolled her eyes at herself; nevertheless, she went to sleep with a happy anticipation that did not account for her dream.

In the middle of the night, long vague things without a discernable color began waving in front of her, behind her, on both sides, and even above her. She stood in the middle of the wavy things, while fear threw itself at her mind.
Then she heard a voice. “Help me. Please, help me,” it sobbed. “Help me—,” but with the repeated cry, Lacht sat up in bed, breathing heavily, and clutched the covers.
It was a bad dream, she told herself. Only a bad dream!

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