Feynard (70 page)

Without his knowing how it had come to pass,
Kevin found himself looking up at the Arch of Indomalion. His clothes and hers were gone, surrendered to the power of the dance. The Dryad’s movements, her touch and her ardour, seemed touched with an elemental prerogative that resounded like horns in the deepest recesses of Kevin’s soul, demanding yet gentle, fulfilling what he had fought so long to deny, bringing repressed hurts to the fore and tenderly kissing them away.

And yet, she held back.
He questioned her with his gaze.

Abruptly, with a sharp shudder,
Alliathiune gasped, “Kevin! Run away!” And she groaned, a sound that seemed torn from her body by the Dark Wizard’s cruellest sorcery. “Oh Kevin, please … just go!”

“
What? Why?”

“You don’t know
… you cannot!”

“I know, dear one,” he said. “You must make this sacrifice for the Forest. There is no other way. I love
you, Alliathiune, and I wish with all my heart did not have to be so.”

He sensed in her
a restless, seething power, her magic like a snake in a tunnel, ready to slither into the light. The Dryadic patterning on her arms and legs began to writhe with intense, consuming power. Imbued with strength beyond that of natural flesh, Alliathiune locked him against her body, trapping him beneath her. Kevin felt his eyes grow wide. Panic struck deep within him. Now who was the elemental power? She was the Forest, the great Mother, a force of Nature which swept the floodgates irresistibly wide and blasted through his defences like wildfire across a drought-stricken meadow. Her might was staggering. He tried to shield, somehow, but the Dryad had a hold of him on so many levels he simply had no idea where to start.

“
Kevin!” she screamed. “Please, stop me, oh please, please …”

Ice spread in his veins. This was nothing to do with his unworthiness. He could never be worthy. Where was the danger? It was not from his side, that he knew more clearly than she could possibly be aware of–so it had to be something to do with her. Bitter laughter welled up in his heart as he remembered his earlier conclusion–there was nothing dangerous about mating with a Dryad, was there? Did Dryads even mate with men? As Zephyr had suggested, was beneath the Arch of Indomalion the only place where a Dryad could mate with a Human man? In the legend, Elliadora had not killed Indomalion.

Did she intend to kill him for his seed? That was impossible. It could not work like that, surely? Travesty, mockery … truth? Akê-Akê had once called Dryads parasites. Kevin had misunderstood, referring to their symbiotic relationship with the Forest. But now he realised that there might be more to the Faun Loremaster’s assertion than had first met the eye. There might be magic latent within her, a stormtide of magic, rising along with her passion. There might be the antithesis of Dryadic nature, a perversion–but why? He did not understand!

Alliathiune struggled, desperately trying to hold back, but her Seer magic was
the essence of her very being. He sensed her struggle; felt the way it ravaged her, the dark patterns blossoming and spreading across her face, neck, and shoulders, her feet and knees changing and rooting themselves in the earth either side of him, of the
fear
that ruled her, body and soul, at that moment.

“
I’ll kill you! Not me–you!”

He bleated, terrified, “Don’t you love me, Alliathiune?”

“It’s … because I love you!”

Her mouth roared the words; they hammered upon his ears and turned his logic upside-down.
Kevin’s mind reeled. At last, all was clear. The power of opposites. This was the Seer’s sacrifice–she could not love, for her love would kill. Passion unleashed in its deadliest form. All the while, as he admired and encouraged her noble sacrifice for the Forest, he had been digging his own grave. And now he had leaped right into it.

Again, Alliathiune groaned, tearing
savagely at her face with her fingernails. “Stop it, Mother … stop it! I can’t kill him … why? Why this, for love?”

Shuddering with a shocking need, the Dryad pressed herself against him. Her fingers grew tendrils that pinned his hands to the ground. Kevin fought like a trapped animal, but the tiny Dryad was filled with
insane strength. Sobbing, screaming, devastated with the uncontrolled power of her magic, the
Rites of Aliddiune
began beneath the Arch of Indomalion, where legend told that Elliadora had lain in her lover’s arms and conceived the Elliarana. A Dryad’s roots tore the sacred greensward. Her body writhed grotesquely above her beloved, and the Human fought for his life. What a Dryad feared most, what her essential nature rebelled against more than anything, was about to come to pass.

The Forest was life, but this was death.

The Forest was love, but this was hatred and fear.

The Forest was hope, the promise of new growth, but this was a desecration.

Kevin fought her magic frantically, but he found no power that seemed to work against it. Alliathiune’s Dryad magic was organic and cell-deep, affecting him at a level beneath conscious thought. His own body worked against him, gladly changing from flesh to plant, from person to dead wood. The path to death was good. It swept him along like a river in full spate. The pleasure was exquisite. Not even his fate could detract from that. He would die smiling.

Could he surrender? The magic would consume him utterly.
Could he redirect it? No, the Dryadic magic operated in paths he had never imagined. Could he battle? Yes, but her hold over him only seemed to grow the stronger. The entire power of the Mother Forest, it seemed, bore down upon him through Her disciple; Alliathiune the Dryad was as helpless before that demand as her quarry. His body was no use any more, save to the Dryad’s and the Forest’s needs. But his mind remained free.

And
in that crucible, he finally grasped what must be done. The fear had to be conquered, or she could never be free.

“You can’t kill me,” he said. “That’s not me.”

Alliathiune’s hair flew over her face as she looked to her right.

“That’s
only my body. The real me, the part that matters, is over here.”

Her head snapped to the left. “Kevin?”

“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said. “You can’t kill me. Nothing you can do will kill me. I love you, Alliathiune.”

“I … can’t?” she panted, staring about wide-eyed.

“Why are you so afraid, good Dryad? What do you fear?”

She shook her head as if to deny his voice in her ears. Her body moved
with an impetus all of its own, a most delightful pulse of life and spoiled love, and almost–almost, he was overcome. But Kevin imagined he was the same blue as his hand, the living dead flesh, the flesh imbued with magic that gave him the strength to be opposite, different, the counter-argument to reality.

“Dryad magic does not work beneath the Arch of Indomalion,” he told her. “Did you not learn your histories? Beneath the Arch Elliadora lay with her beloved, and all was well.
The Sacred Grove was formed. Indomalion did not die. He and Elliadora live yet, in the sun and the Forest around us, and you know as well as I that their spirit is alive and well here, in this place. What do you fear, my beloved? Why?”

“B-But,” she stammered, “every D-Dryad who loves … and
a Seer m-most of all … it must be done as a purely selfish act, without feeling, or the magic surges up, uncontainable–”

“
Not only in passion, but also in fear,” Kevin interrupted, “and mostly, because of your hatred of what is anathema to every Dryad. Only your terrors give the magic voice. It is self-defence. How did the Dryads ever go so wrong? It’s … insane. It’s not Elliadora’s way, as surely as I live and breathe!”

After
a long, stunned silence, Alliathiune’s throat worked and suddenly she began to laugh. She laughed as though it hurt, as though she were purging an appalling, long-suppressed pain. Each peal of laughter was wrenched out of her innermost fears. Soon, he could not tell if she was laughing or crying. Her face, having darkened to a stormy black-green, began to clear, and her Dryadic patterns reformed themselves on her skin. Her wild, desolate eyes surrendered but slowly to the knowledge growing within her; the uncertainties still present and ready to flee into horror once more, but the desperate flowering of her magic was cut short.

Her gaze came into focus.
“By the Hills, good Kevin, how are you whispering in my ear when your mouth is clearly elsewhere?”

“I’ll tell you something else. I can do
this
.”

“Kevin!”

“And this, too.”

She jumped.
“Kevin Jenkins, you … scoundrel!”

Her hands
turned back into hands once more and she leaned back, evidently not ready yet to relinquish her perch, but relaxing visibly as she tucked her hair behind her ear with a self-conscious gesture. Her roots unwound, her magic subsided, and in a moment, she found her smile again. The Dryad magic released its death-grip upon him. Kevin silently reversed the changes which had begun to turn him into a lifeless hunk of wood. He did not otherwise dare to move.

For a very long time, it was all they could do to smile at each other. Slowly, the terror
s passed and vanished into the darktime. Delicately, belief blossomed within them. It could be. It would be. But it was so difficult to believe.

The Dryad
murmured, “So if I can’t kill you …?”

An unseen pair of lips nibbled her ear.

“Oh Kevin …”

“I
rather fancy the ring of ‘Mighty High Wizard,’ at this moment,” he suggested, “especially if it makes you say, ‘Oh Kevin’ like that again.”

“
You impudent man–it’s a serious question!” But Alliathiune caught her breath in a new realisation. “Dear Kevin–I can call you that now, can’t I?
Dear
Kevin, dearest Kevin. Please tell me–”

“
That all is for love, and as it should be?”

Her eyes
became wells of wonder and desire; her voice lowered to an awed whisper. “But the Forest still needs a Seedling. And all the magic of Driadorn, along with my own body, tells me that this darktime is the right time. I beg you, good Kevin … I beg of you, can it be, that this between us … it is real? I’m not dreaming?”

“So it is.” Kevin reached for his beloved Dryad. “
No begging required. Why don’t we start over, Alliathiune–without the nasty killing business? That’s so yester-lighttime’s magic.”

“You silly man!”

“You even sillier Dryad.”

Alliathiune shut his mouth with a kiss. One kiss led to
several more. Soon, the
Rites of Aliddiune
were in gentle motion, where Dryad Seer and mortal Man moved in a harmony as old as time itself; history turned full circle, beneath the Arch of Indomalion in the Sacred Grove of Driadorn.

But this time, it was right.

A
s the light of
a new dawn gilded the gigantic trees of the Sacred Grove, Kevin awoke to find Alliathiune regarding him solemnly from a distance of several inches. Her hazel eyes gleamed, enigmatic wells he could lose himself in forever, and his eyes traced the intricate filigree of her Dryadic patterning from the corners of her eyes, over her cheekbones, and down to her still, pensive lips. But very soon the corners of her mouth curved upward as they gazed at each other, without speaking, just drinking in the moment.

It was true. It was good. Kevin wanted to pinch himself–last darktime had not been just a dream, had it?
His heart was doing strange flip-flops in his chest. Was this love? This feeling that seemed to both squeeze and release him simultaneously, to be his own Seventy-Seven Hills he could run over, free as the wind whispering in a Forest glade …

Alliathiune
reached up to ruffle his curls. “The Peace of the Sacred Grove to you, dear Kevin,” she said.

It tickled him how she stressed the word ‘dear’ as though it were a fresh delight
every time she said it. “And also to you, my dear girl.” He cleared his throat. “Although, may I point out, you didn’t give me much peace last darktime.”

“
You grow bold, Mighty High Wizard. You started it.”

“
I did rather, didn’t I?” Kevin agreed, smugly. “Several times.”

“Oh, you were definitely
my Mighty High Wizard, all darktime long,” said the Dryad, in a sly tone that made him turn the same colour as his hair. “Is this what it feels like, to be allowed to love? I never knew … I never let myself hope …”

“Don’t cry, my heart.”

“I’m happy.”

“Barbarian outlander, he make little
Dryad cry.”

“I knew an outlander once,” she sniffled, “but he became a friend of the Forest and was no outlander anymore.”

Kevin gulped in turn. Oh, dash it all. Could he not even control a few simple tears? He was grateful, absurdly grateful, that Feynard was not just a dream the Dryad Seer and the Unicorn had once dreamed; because reality was more beautiful, and bittersweet, than he could ever have imagined. This was what it felt like to awaken in a cocoon of warm Dryadic magic, next to the most beautiful woman in the world, who he loved to the point of distraction. Yes, this was what it felt like to be whole, and healed, like the Forest itself.

After a long and involved apology which quickly dissolved into more than just cuddles, Kevin reluctantly rose to find wherever their clothes had been abandoned the previous darktime. He saw Snatcher coming up from the river, and Zephyr rustling up a little fruit and waycrust with the help of his tele
kinetic horn powers. Both creatures glanced meaningfully in his direction with expressions that suggested he was about to be teased within an inch of his life.

Returning to the Arch, they helped each other dress. Kevin plucked the inevitable twig out of
the Dryad’s hair, while she tried to make sense of his impossible curls.

Then he linked arms with Alliathiune, and said, “This would make a fine place to be married, wouldn’t you say, dear one? Make a decent woman out of you and all that.”

“We must plant our Seedling in a moon.”

“So soon?”

Alliathiune squeezed his arm, laughing merrily at the mild panic evident in his response. “I suppose I should explain that she will grow for seven Leaven seasons before she is born? You’ve time to get used to the idea.”

“That long?”

“Make up your mind, good Kevin. Dryadic lifecycles are different to Human. So are our traditions, but I would gladly start a new one with you. Many creatures marry in different ways, but not Dryads, because of our dark history. But I love you, and would gladly commit to you. You were so, so sweet last darktime. Imagine thinking I was the one who would die?”

“
Logical, but ever so wrong.”

“Are you admitting a mistake? You, good Kevin?”

“Are you asking for trouble? You, good Alliathiune?” He drew her into his arms. “So, darling, with the circle of the Elliarana complete …?”

“The Forest’s magic will be whole.”

“We should go find your mother. She’d want–”

“You read my letter! Kevin!”

He hung his head. “Sorry. Only the bits I could understand. I knew the Dryad Queen was trying to force you–”

As quickly as she had erupted, Alliathiune subsided
against his chest. “Yes, my Aunt has a few things to answer for, doesn’t she?” she said, ominously. “So you knew I was trying to seduce you! I desperately didn’t want to either–believe me, I hoped against all hope a different way could be found. But the Forest’s need was so overwhelming, especially in this place, that I could not withhold even though I wanted to. And you were making it so easy for me, you rascally man. I should have suspected you were up to no good.”

The Dryad Queen’s disbelief, when she saw Alliathiune and Kevin sitting at table breaking waycrust with Zephyr, the Jasper Cat, Two Hoots, and a smattering of X’gäthi warriors, was comical. Zephyr, pontificating about the need to track down the Kraleon before it corrupted any more of the Forest’s creatures–for it had vanished with Brian’s death–and a Goblin army which was indiscriminately destroying the Forest to build siege weapons and
wide roads, was interrupted mid flow by the Queen screeching:

“You! You didn’t make a Seedling? But I made certain … the magic!”

“Surprised to see the good Human alive,
noble
Aunt?” Alliathiune could be downright waspish when she wanted, and she appeared to be in a stinging mood. “Concerned your clumsy attempt at blackmail and extortion did not work out?”

“The Forest needs a Seedling! How dare you disobey?”

Alliathiune replied sharply in Ancient Dryadic. The Queen turned pale. After a brief but hostile argument, the Dryad Queen stalked off to the Portal–manifestly insulted by whatever Alliathiune had told her–and ordered the Unicorn there to send her home at once.

Before anyone could speak, Alliathiune turned to Two Hoots and said, “My apologies, noble Owl. But that argument had been brewing for many seasons. My Aunt is not subtle in wielding her power, and the less she has to do with this
Seeding in my belly, the better–for now. I should try to reconcile with her, I suppose.”

“You broke
the Dryad curse? You actually did it?” gasped Zephyr. “By the Hills, when I saw good Kevin at dawn … but I dared not dream … you did the deed? Truly?”

“I’m famished,” said Kevin, tucking in. “Good Unicorn, it was no curse, but rather a misunderstanding.”

The Unicorn neighed shrilly, “Five thousand Leaven seasons of
misunderstanding?
”

Alliathiune said,
placing her hand significantly on her belly, “We did ‘the deed’, as you put it so memorably–”

“
Actually, it was a simple matter,” Kevin interrupted. “But I came
this
close to dying–”

“
And we intend to be married just as soon as possible,” said Alliathiune, slipping her hand into Kevin’s and beaming as the Unicorn let out a great whinny of delight. “Do you think the Tomalia might lend us a pretty spot in Thaharria-brin-Tomal for the first such celebration in–well, I don’t know how many seasons?”

With a whoop,
Zephyr was off and prancing about the table in his foal-like exuberance, enthusing, “I don’t believe it! I’ll look up the exact number in our records! A Seedling, and a wedding, well, by the Hills … I’ll take care of all the arrangements. I know the perfect place. I will–what are you giggling at, noble Dryad?”

“You, noble Unicorn. I would like
you
to officiate the vows here, at the Sacred Grove.”

For once, Zephyr was struck speechless.

And then Alliathiune spoiled it by blurting out, “If my husband-to-be agrees, of course. Sorry, good Kevin.”

He said drolly, “I may as well marry a passing thunderstorm.” Laughter rose about them. He stifled her retort by kissing her soundly on the lips. “I would like it if all
of our friends were in attendance–Snatcher, Hunter, Amadorn, and you, Two Hoots, and the Jasper Cat–I suppose we’d have to invite an awful lot of people. Er, creatures, that is.”

“If we can fit in a ceremony between knocking a few Goblin heads together.”

Kevin stared at Alliathiune. “You, who grow Driadorn’s future in your belly, will be staying right here.”

“I will not.”

“This is a battle! The Goblin army is five hundred thousand strong! I don’t want you going anywhere near it!”

“My dear Kevin, I will do a
s I choose in a manner I choose.”

He shot back, “
Which part of ‘I love you’ do you not understand, you stubborn, impossible woman? I care too much about you–!”

“You try to stop me!”

“Mighty High Wizard, he say–”

A hunk of waycrust bounced off his nose.

“Well now, that was rather childish, don’t you think?”

Alliathiune
essayed a coquettish smile. “Tell me, am I supposed to protect my bumbling beloved from a multitude of magical ‘accidents’ from a hundred leagues away?”

“
You have a point, I’ll grant. But you tell me first, what did you just say to the Dryad Queen a moment ago?”

The Dryad scowled at him and said, mutinously, “That I intended t
o obey my future husband’s will; and that she could take up her issues with you.”

Kevin
tried to leap to his feet, but smacked his knees on the table instead. He cried, “
Obey
her husband’s will? Did you hear that? I have witnesses–Zephyr? Two Hoots? She used the word ‘obey’. You all heard her, loud and clear. Right, Zephyr?”

“Didn’t hear a thing,” averred the Unicorn.

“Only the buzzing of grimflies,” agreed the Lurk. But he was grinning so broadly Kevin thought he could see his molars.

“Going deaf in my dotage,” added Two Hoots, with a hoot that sounded rather like a cackle of laughter. “Good Kevin, it is a wise and ancient policy of the Owls that newlywed creatures should not rush off to war. Personally, I require your brains right where I can peck ideas out of them, if you’d pardon the pun.” And he blinked his huge yellow eyes
at them to underscore his humour. “I look forward to that momentous occasion, whenever you two fledglings decide it shall be. Now, let us break waycrust together. This lighttime grows no younger. And I look forward to knocking a few Goblin skulls together as the Dryad suggested.”

“Battalions of
armoured Elephants,” said Alliathiune.

“Battalions of feisty yet surprisingly obedient Dryads,” Kevin put in, earning himse
lf a gentle slap from his bride-to-be.

Zephyr laughed. “I see the future of Driadorn is safe in your hands. Do you think the Dryad will argue less with me now that she has you
to spar with, noble Kevin?”

He slapped the Unicorn before Alliathiune
reached him.

Kevin and the Dryad
said in unison, “That’s from both of us.” And then they looked at each other in surprise, and laughed.

*  *  *  *

Three lighttimes later, Kevin arranged to meet with the Dryad Queen near Dryadell, home of the Dryads. This issue between her and Alliathiune needed to be resolved.

As soon as she saw him reappear from the grove where he had withdrawn to consult with the Dryad Queen, Alliathiune ran
straight to Kevin and threw her arms around him, and her legs for good measure, almost knocking him over.

“You’re trembling! And as green as a Forest parrot, and–”

“I’m not going to be sick, I’m not!”

“Then let me help you–strength to you, good Kevin.”

To his surprise, Kevin felt her Dryad magic simply whisk the nausea away. He was still shaking, but that passed also. He clutched Alliathiune in his arms and whispered into her hair, “Dear one, I’m not very good at confrontation. But I know the location of your mother’s tree. It is–”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!”

“I’ll speak when you stop kissing–”

“Never.”

With a contented sigh, Kevin let himself enjoy the ever-tumultuous flow of his beloved Dryad’s emotions, so much so that he was quite befuddled when she was done and Alliathiune declared herself most satisfied with her ability to disarm Driadorn’s mightiest Wizard.

“She said it’s the lavender trumpet-flower tree next to the seventeenth waterfall
uphill,” he managed, finally.

Alliathiune’s expression changed in a twinkling from unbridled delight to concern. “How come you’re so upset, then, good Kevin? And what was that plume of smoke I saw?”

He said, between clenched teeth, “In exchange for the location of your mother’s tree, your precious Queen demanded that I teach her, there and then, what I taught you beneath the Arch of Indomalion.”

“The vixen!” Alliathiune exploded. “You’re mine, and she can’t have you!
Not for one second! Why, when I get my hands on that slimy, manipulative … I’m going to turn her into a large, knobbly cucumber! And then I’ll slice her up for salad–mmm? Mmm!”