A Meeting At Corvallis

egan softly, a rhythmic stutter with the wild sweetness of the pipes in the background. Then the music
swelled and she raised her voice in an effortless soprano that filled the Hall without straining; she'd been a
professional singer before the Change, of course. One hand went up as she sang, and the teenagers
followed suit, first with the fingers spread and then held together.
"What is the difference 'tween feathers and hair?
The handprint of a human or the paw of a bear?
We all roar with laughter, we all howl with tears,
Show our teeth if we're angry, and lay back our ears!"
The youngsters came in on the chorus:
"A passion within you
Whispering what you want to be
Take a look in the mirror
What animal do you wish to see?"
Then louder, as they all joined in:
"We each meet our animal … in its time and place
And gazing into those eyes … we see our own face
It'll teach us and guide us if we but call its name
For under the Lady's sky we're animals all the same—"
"Here, try this instead of that lousy tea," Dennis went on, pouring from a pot that rested on a ledge in
the hearth. "You were out in the cold and wet most of the day, and it's getting dark. And since I brew the
stuff … What's that old saying about the time for the first drink?"
"The sun's over the yardarm is the phrase," Nigel said aside to Dennis, keeping his eyes on the
Mackenzie chieftain as he sipped at the hot honey-wine.
The contents were mead, dry and smooth and fragrant with herbs. He worked the muscles of his left
arm, his shield-arm, as he drank. The break where the greatsword had cracked the bone of his upper
arm still hurt a little; he suspected it always would on damp winter days like this. It would take work to
get full strength back, but the bone had knit and it could take the strain of a heavy shield and hard blows
once more. He'd spent the morning sparring and beating at a pell-post with his practice sword along with
some other adults in the open space under the northern wall. During occasional rests he'd watched while
the children built their two snowmen and adorned them with antlers and feathers, and constructed two
snow forts and named them oak and holly before fighting a ferocious snowball battle-to-the-death.
"And … ah, yes, I remember now."
"Remember what?" Dennis asked.
He was a big man, probably fat before the Change and burly now. Hands showed the scars and
callus of a wood-carver and leatherworker; besides that, he ran the Dun Juniper brewery and distillery.
His face was wreathed in brown hair and beard, except for the bald spot on the crown of his head, and
he was going gray in his late fifties. That made him half a decade older than the slight, trim figure of the
Englishman sitting across from him, smoothing his silver-shot mustache and blinking blue eyes that were
just a trifle watery from an old injury. They'd spent a fair amount of time talking since Loring had arrived
at Dun Juniper seven months before.
"Why I liked that little ditty the youngsters were singing a moment ago," Nigel said. "About the end of
the world. I was convalescing then, too. In a hospital … a rather, ah, private one … and someone kept
playing that tune. It was the sort of place where you had armed guards outside the sickroom door."
"That made you like the song?"
"Well, I didn't die, you see," the Englishman said, with a charming smile. "And after having a Provo
shoot me with an ArmaLite and blow me up to boot, that put me in rather a good mood. The tune brings
back that feeling of sweet relief."
"What happened to the Provo?" Martin asked curiously.