Foxfire (23 page)

Early morning mist still shrouded the lake. Along the shore, it had dissipated into wispy skeins that drifted around the travelers and transformed them into strange, otherworldly beings. Like the restless spirits Darak had encountered in Chaos.

Callie's arm stole around her shoulders, a bleak reminder that only one of her children remained with her. Rigat had always been hers. Faelia had always belonged to Darak. After Zheros, so did Keirith. Callie was the only one they had shared, the only one who had never caused them a sleepless night. And because of it, he had gotten so much less of them—their attention, their worry, and possibly, their love.

“We should have given you more,” she said, and felt him start.

“You gave me everything I needed. You and Fa both.”

He drew her closer, and she leaned against him, surprised at the strength of his arm. Together, they watched the figures crest the rise. The tallest among them paused at the top. Darak's hand rose. Then Faelia's. But Keirith simply stood there.

Darak turned away first. That surprised her; she would have expected it to be Faelia. Instead, she lingered a moment, still waving, then slowly followed her father down the hill.

Griane lowered her head, unable to look at that solitary figure. Then she heard Hircha insistently repeating her name. She looked up and discovered her pointing at the hilltop.

Keirith's right hand was raised in farewell. Frantically, she waved back. Through the hot wash of tears, she watched him turn away, visible from the knees up, then the waist, then the shoulders, until—between one step and the next—he was gone.

PART TWO

—Zherosi proverb

I
N HIS THIRTEEN YEARS OF LIFE, Rigat had never ventured more than a half-day's journey from home. During his first moon with Fellgair, he discovered how vast the world truly was.

He explored deserts where golden sand rippled like the waves of an endless sea, and forests so dense and humid that water dripped ceaselessly from giant leaves. Glimpsed stone temples that towered over sprawling cities, and tiny villages guarded by tall wooden columns carved with animal faces. Observed fur-clad shamans pouring blood over sizzling stones, and naked priestesses tossing garlands of flowers into bubbling springs.

He was surprised that they never visited Zheros, for he knew Fellgair was worshiped there as the God with Two Faces. Nor did they enter the First Forest. But Fellgair did take him to the Summerlands.

Rigat stared in wonder at the enormous tree that would shelter the spirit of the Oak-Lord after his defeat at Midsummer. He gaped at the tree-folk his mam had met and shivered with delight when Rowan's leafy fingers touched his hair. Then Fellgair took him to a pretty little waterfall.

“This is where I brought your mother after I rescued her from Morgath.”

Rigat nodded. Although Darak and his mam rarely spoke of Fellgair, he knew that much from the tale Nemek told.

“This is also where you were conceived.”

This time, the shiver that raced down his spine was far less pleasant. It was one thing to know he was the Trickster's son and another to picture Fellgair and Mam lying together in the thick grass.

Fellgair allowed him to walk openly through the Summerlands, but during the rest of their travels, they remained hidden by the strange mist Fellgair conjured to shield them from observation. At first, Rigat feared his father was disappointed with him. Fellgair just shook his head, smiling, and explained that he must master his power before showing it off to strangers.

Under Fellgair's tutelage, Rigat learned to control his power so he could call upon it at will. To open portals and travel from one place to another. To understand languages that at first seemed like gibberish.

Although he was still too much in awe of his father to feel completely comfortable, it was a relief to talk openly about his power and get answers to the questions that had plagued him for years. Fellgair was an ideal teacher—patient, amusing, and wise. If he never hugged him after he mastered a new skill, his smile assured Rigat that he was proud. If he sometimes vanished for a day, he always returned, eager to see what Rigat had accomplished in his absence.

Left on his own, Rigat dutifully practiced his magic and hunted for food. But hunting lost some of its allure once he learned to guide an arrow straight to his quarry's heart, and it always conjured bittersweet memories of that day with Darak, just as visits to the Summerlands reminded him of his mam. Alone at night, he recalled the noisy meals around the fire pit and the warmth of his brothers' bodies flanking his. But he reminded himself that the knowledge he was gaining was worth any sacrifice.

During one of Fellgair's absences, he rose before dawn, determined to visit the First Forest. Guided by Darak's description of the One Tree, he pictured it in his mind, then raised his hand and jabbed the air with his forefinger. The air shuddered, as if in protest, then reluctantly gave way. He inserted his fingers into the long rent and peeled it back. After a moon of practice, it was as easy as skinning a rabbit, but it still unnerved him to see another forest through the gap.

He stepped through and carefully sealed the portal behind him. “Never leave a portal open,” Fellgair had warned, “lest some unwary creature stumble through it.”

He had heard the tale of the ancient tree that had stood since the world's first spring, its trunk so massive that twenty men with their arms outstretched could not encircle it. And the tale of the second tree that had sprouted from Tinnean's body after Morgath destroyed the first. But mere words failed to capture the beauty of the grove.

Although sunlight had yet to penetrate the canopy of leaves, the One Tree seemed to glow. Its pale bark was the only reminder that it had once been the body of a man. Compared to the giants around it, the Tree was small and slender. It might almost be mistaken for a birch, if not for the leaves of holly and oak that grew from its branches.

The Oak's heavy boughs nearly obscured the Holly, a single branch that sprouted from the notch where the trunk split in two. Yet like the Oak, its leaves seemed to shimmer, imbued with the spirit of the god who gave it life.

Darak and his mam had stood in this very place. Had Darak wept as he watched his brother's transformation? Had Mam chewed her upper lip, torn between wonder at the miracle unfolding before her and concern for the man beside her?

A Watcher flitted past him, a welcome distraction from such painful thoughts. Darak had described them as a shadowy flash of movement, but Rigat saw them clearly, some with the pale, mottled coloration of birches, others darker and thick-trunked as the oaks they once had been. Their agitation increased as he stepped toward the One Tree, then stilled as if recognizing that he represented no threat. Tentatively, Rigat raised his hands.

As a child, he had made leaves dance. Fellgair had taught him to see inside a leaf, to feel the movement of water through its tiny veins. Where once he could only hear water singing in a stream, his power now allowed him to detect the graceful sigh of waterweed swaying beneath the surface, the chatter of pebbles in the rapids, the trill of darting minnows and the deeper hum of a fat trout.

Would he be able to hear the voices of the gods? Or Tinnean? That would be something—to give Darak a message from the brother he had lost. But it was more than pride or a desire to prove himself to Darak that made him rest his palms against the trunk. Tinnean was the only being in the world who was both human and “other”—like him.

At first, all he could feel was the same thrum of life that emanated from an ordinary tree. As he drew more deeply on his power, it grew stronger, washing over him like water, but through him—into him—as well. As the thrum swelled, so did his power, as if fed by the life-stream of the Tree's energy.

Not a single stream, he realized, but two. One roared through his spirit like a river swollen with the spring runoff. That must be the Oak, whose power grew stronger as Midsummer approached. The other—a mere trickle—must be the Holly-Lord, so weak that it seemed impossible that he could defeat his brother and rival during the Midsummer battle.

Underlying both was a faint vibration, steady and rhythmic as a heartbeat. He could feel his heart slowing to match it, his chest rising and falling with the inexorable rhythm. A wave of warmth engulfed him, and then another. His body flushed with heat as it did when he climaxed, but this pleasure filled the mind as well as the body, spirit as well as flesh.

This must be the song Darak had heard in that dream-cavern in Chaos—the song of the World Tree, created by the Maker at the beginning of time, linking the realm of the gods who dwelled among its silver branches to the world of men who existed within its trunk to the sunlit Forever Isles that floated among its roots.

The song filled him, flooding him with awareness. He knew the ant that marched around his shoe and the robin that sang in the branch above his head. He knew the Watchers that circled the grove and the tree-folk who wandered the Summerlands. He knew the whisper of the wind and the call of the distant sea and the ceaseless flow of time, spiraling through him as slow and certain as sap rising in the spring.

His legs were trembling so much he had to lean his forearms against the Tree to support himself. Like a leaf caught in a current, he drifted, carried by the song and the twin streams of energy that were the Tree-Lords. His helplessness should have frightened him, but instead, he felt a peace and a contentment he had never known.

Was this what Tinnean had experienced—was experiencing? Did his spirit still live within the World Tree or had his essence been absorbed into it after so many years?

Something brushed against his consciousness, so fleeting a touch that he thought he had imagined it. But there it was again, a soft patter like rain hitting thatch. Only when he brought all his power to bear upon it did he realize the pulse was as regular as the rhythm of the World Tree's song.

When he whispered Tinnean's name, the pulse swelled. He touched excitement and joy and love—radiant, fierce, and utterly human. He gasped, too overcome to do more than absorb the flood of emotion.

Suddenly, the pulse faded. The eternal flow of the World Tree faltered. Crestfallen, he let his hands slide down the smooth bark.

The mingled scents of honeysuckle and wild animal filled his nostrils. Rigat whirled around, blinking hard to clear his vision.

“They didn't want me,” he whispered.

“You surprised them,” Fellgair replied. “They've never encountered a being like you. There has never
been
a being like you.”

“I thought Tinnean would understand.”

“He does.”

“But he wanted Darak.” For the first time, he truly understood how Keirith must have felt when he learned their mam had chosen Darak instead of him.

“Of course he did,” Fellgair replied in the same reasonable voice. “Tinnean loves his brother. And he doesn't know you.”

“But the Tree-Lords . . .”

“Gods are creatures of habit.”

“You're a god.”

“But I'm different. They were created by the Maker, the supreme force of order in the world. I am the child of the Maker and the Unmaker. I appreciate . . . disorder.”

“That's what I am? Disorder?”