“Let’s forget that other place, then. Tell me of this one that lives so strongly. Rold said you were much with the Halflings.”
She laughed. “He chides me sometimes, saying that I am a changeling and not human at all.”
“You don’t look human now,” Carse told her, “with the moonlight on your face and your hair all tangled with it.”
“Sometimes I wish it were true. You have never been to the Isles of the Sky Folk?”
“No.”
“They’re like castles rising from the sea, almost as tall as Khondor. When the Sky Folk take me there I feel the lack of wings, for I must be carried or remain on the ground while they soar and swoop around me. It seems to me then that flying is the most beautiful thing in the world and I weep because I can never know it.
“But when I got with the Swimmers I am happier. My body is much like theirs, though never quite so fleet. And it is wonderful—oh, wonderful—to plunge down into the glowing water and see the gardens that they keep, with the strange sea-flowers bowing to the tide and the little bright fish darting like birds among them.
“And their cities, silver bubbles in the shallow ocean. The heavens there are all glowing fire, bright gold when the sun shines, silver at night. It is always warm and the air is still and there are little ponds where the babies play, learning to be strong for the open sea.
“I have learned much from the Halflings,” she finished.
“But the Dhuvians are Halflings too?” Carse said.