The Hob's Bargain

I blinked at him, uncertain whether I felt more incredulous or insulted. "And you're the very paragon of tractability, I suppose?"

As quickly as that, his merry mood was gone. He tucked the last of the flowers in my hair and let out a slow breath. "The mountain commands and I obey."

My, but didn't he sound happy.

"If I felt like that about it, I wouldn't obey," I commented.

"That's why elementals avoid humans," said the hob.

I walked barefoot in the hob's cloak and a sarong of silk and moonlight with circlets of flowers around my head, my wrists, and my ankles. Caefawn walked in front of me, occasionally warning me of sticks and thorns—sometimes even before my feet found them first.

I wondered if what I was doing would offend the One God more than my being mageborn already had. My father said Tolleck, the new priest, was very young, but blessed with a gift enabling him to speak to the One God. Father'd smiled at me and said it gave him hope, seeing how a priest that close to the One God was a good man.

"Caefawn?"

"Hmm?"

"I won't be worshiping this spirit, will I?" The moonlight allowed me to see his eyebrows raise. "No, indeed. Though I've heard of one or two elemental spirits who tried to require it. Not healthy for anyone concerned—even if the gods don't get involved. Just be respectful." I stepped on another sharp rock, and swore.

My feet were sore by the time we reached the old snag. In the night the ancient oak looked eerie, full of shadows and of silver where the light touched it.

"It's over here," I said, starting for the field.

"Wait here," he said, and stripped his cloak from my shoulders. "This is close enough. You don't want to force yourself on it."

"That's right," agreed a boyish voice. "It wouldn't do to force yourself where you aren't wanted."

The boy perched casually in the branches of the old snag. He wore rich-looking clothes of light-colored velvet; I couldn't tell whether they were pink or blue. One of his arms was twined in the branch above the one he sat on, the other rested negligently on one hip. Not what I'd expected of an earth spirit.

"I have to go a lot of places I couldn't, if I went only where I am wanted," I replied sharply—forgetting the one piece of advice the hob had given me. Be respectful, he'd said.

"I have to go a lot of places I couldn't, if I went only where I'm wanted," he said, repeating my words in a high singsong voice. It sounded even stupider the second time.

I swallowed my words and waited until I could speak calmly. Ridicule, I told myself sternly, was a childish game. Responding meant you lost.

"Spirit," I said calmly, even respectfully, "I have come to find out why you sent your servants to attack us."

He bounced off the tree to crouch at my feet. He was so close I could smell the herbs on his breath.

"Killed and maimed the earthen, you did," he said in a sad voice. "Poor dead things." He said it in Caulem's voice.

In the tree, his face had been in shadows, so I had no warning until he was crouched in front of me and I looked into my husband's brother's face. But looking out through Caulem's clear eyes was someone else entirely.

"How dare you?" I grabbed the top of his shirt by the shoulders. "How dare you take the form of my kin?" I didn't yell, but rage thickened my voice. "It does not belong to you."

"Aren," warned the hob, his tail wrapping my ankle for the second time this night. It must have been a habitual gesture, but I found it distracting. My anger cooled enough for me to better consider my actions.

"Everything that goes to earth belongs to me!" the creature screamed. He was a wicked caricature of the boy I'd known. "You have not the right to deny me any form I choose, human."

"What is this?" A man's musical bass stroked my ears.

The being who wore my brother-by-marriage's form pulled from my grip and ran into the shadows whence the voice had issued. "It hurt me!" he cried piteously. "Oh, Master, save your poor shaper from the dreadful thing. Ow, ow, my shoulders. See where it bruised me?"

The moon came out in her full glory just before the new creature stepped out from the rye field. He was taller than either the hob or I by a good head, and his golden antlers were taller yet. Like me, he was clothed in a simple sarong, though his merely wrapped around his hips. I still couldn't tell how it stayed on. I reached up to make certain mine was still where it belonged.

The elemental's features were broad, with wide cheekbones and full, sensuous lips. His chin and lower jaw were coated with a dense beard that looked as much like moss as it did hair. Large, dark-colored eyes gazed upon me solemnly. His hair was shoulder length, wire-thick, and curly. His feet were cloven hooves.

"So you abuse my servant?" he said. There was no accusation in his tone, but I bristled anyway, ignoring the way the hob's tail tightened painfully around my ankle.

"Your servant wears the body of my kin, who died this spring." Anger at the shock and the sacrilege added an edge to my words.

The earth spirit made a chiding noise through his teeth, turning to the boy who crouched at his feet. "Is it so?" He didn't seem to need an answer, because he continued, "For shame, shaper. Go and change. Wear no more the forms of shades just to torment the living."

The boy cast me a malevolent look. "She hurt me, Master. Wilst punish her?"

"Go, now, child."

The boy hissed, but he left by the same path through the rye his master had taken earlier.

"Are you going to punish me?" I asked. I heard the hob draw in his breath at my challenging tone. Either that or he was laughing. In the darkness it was hard to tell.

"The fledgling was in the wrong," said the earth spirit. "I apologize for him." There was regal concession in his voice, but no real apology.

"You're not the one who owes me an apology," I replied.

The hob shook his head. This time I knew I heard a choked-off laugh. I ignored him.

The earth spirit spared Caefawn a glance, then turned to me. "Who are you, and why do you come to me here?"

Ah, here was the chance to use the speech I'd practiced all the way here. "I am Aren of Fallbrook. I've come to find out how we have angered you, that you sent your earthens to attack us." There it was, my speech, all of it.

The spirit shrugged his wide shoulders and dropped to the ground with sudden grace. I stood feeling awkward for a moment, but when the hob sat down as well, I did the same. The night enfolded us in its secrets while I waited for the spirit to speak.

"Where are the dances?" he asked after a while. The dark voice was heavy with sorrow. "Where the songs to gladden my heart? Where the thanks belonging to the earth? I am bereft." The pathos in his voice was so heartfelt that tears gathered in my eyes, though I didn't understand the reason for his sadness.

He continued to speak. "My ears have not heard the spring songs for so long that I do not even have the memory of them to hold. Yet the children of the village continued to rip my skin with their iron and forced me to bear them fruit whilst I could do nothing but sleep. But I am awake now. Should they not pay the price?" Wrath lit the bass reaches of his voice, and his eyes glowed green and brown with a light of their own. The strangeness of it reminded me how powerful this spirit could be. I'd seen the mountain cause an earthquake, and Caefawn said the earth spirit was stronger.

"What you say is true," I answered carefully, the germ of an idea begi