Longeye (21 page)

He cast along the angle, looking up, but there were no trees in the proper place or of necessary height to produce those prints. The wood here had given over to low-growth for a space, as if there had been a fire, or—

A gleam of silver beyond the bowing fronds of a tall weed captured his eye. His belly froze, but he forced himself to creep forward, as if stalking dangerous game, and keeping the good green of living plants all about him.

There, only a few steps past those green fronds under which he now sheltered, was the flat shine of silver against the air, and the cold sense of something neither alive nor decently dead.

Meri shuddered. The . . . apparition hovered twice his height above the floor of the forest—a flat rectangle of dead air, boiling with languid grey mists.

It was, he thought, glancing behind him for another look at that first, impossible pair of hoofprints, high enough to account for their angle and depth.

Meri sat back on his heels and closed his eye.

"Did they—the Low Fey—accompany the beast out of this . . . thing . . . ?"

Yes, Ranger,
the culdoon answered.
They rode on its back.

"Is that object—of—the
keleigh
?"

There was no answer.

Meri opened his eye, glaring at the rectangle. Its edges seemed to be becoming less . . . definite, smokier, and he had a moment's dread, that the mists it enclosed would, unconfined, pour free out into the unsuspecting wood.

The edges continued to fade, and the mists, as well, until—abruptly—it was gone, leaving behind a disagreeable taint on the air.

"How," Meri asked the wood about him, "am I to ward against that?"

There was no answer.

After a time, he rose and, taking care with it, crafted a simple repulsion ward. He reasoned that it did no good to spend a great deal of
kest
—even had he a great deal of
kest
to expend—to ward a road that faded in and out, and might never manifest in this exact location again.

When the ward was in place, and he had rested, he spoke to the wood.

"It would assist me, a Ranger in the service of the trees," he said formally, "if I were informed of the manifestation of such beasts and Low Fey as attacked the Gardener yestereve."

His words echoed slightly, as if they traveled a great distance. Meri waited, and at last came the thin, papery voice of a very old elitch, indeed.

We will be vigilant on your behalf, Ranger.

Violet had decreed tea and bustled off to make it, leaving Becca blessedly, if temporarily, alone on the bench beneath the bitirrn tree to overlook the garden.

It was a pleasant place, with neat rows of cultivated herbs, clusters of vegetables, and a border of mary's gold; winberige grew with abandon over a low arbor, heavy fruit nestled amid alternating leaves of dark green and parchment. The air was a-buzz with honeybees, and gay with flutterwisps, their wings almost as brilliant as Nancy's.

Becca sighed. Though she had been long months in the Vaitura, the mingled dry leaves and green among clusters of the same plant struck her eye—and her Gardener's heart—as wrong.

"Was the Vaitura always without seasons?" she asked, expecting no answer, nor did she receive one for the space of time it took a flutterwisp to drink its fill from a mary's gold bloom and rise on the back of the sweet breeze.

There were seasons
, a voice—a very old voice, so it seemed to Becca—said laboriously.
There were seasons, and great storms of rain, and lightning, and snow.

"Why did it change, then?" she asked, when it seemed clear that the tree was not about to speak further.

It changed . . . 
the old voice wavered, as if uncertain of the meaning of either her question or its answer.
It changed
, it said again, more definitively.

"But something must have precipitated it," Becca argued. "Change does not simply occur."

A light step and the clink of pottery warned her. She pressed her lips firmly together. It would not do to be seen talking to herself, she thought.

"Thank you," she said, as Violet Moore set a cup on the bench next to her. She picked it up so the girl would have room to sit, and sipped cautiously.

She smiled as the simple taste cleansed her mouth: fremoni tea, sweetened with honey. Comfort in a cup, as Sonet had used to say.

"Well," the girl said, with a brightness that sounded forced to Becca's ear. "What do you think of our garden, Healer?"

"I think it a very fine basic medicinal garden," Becca said truthfully. "All of the healer's friends are present, saving those—such as marisk, cadmyon, and corish root—that do not thrive under cultivation. I wonder . . ." She paused, and sipped her tea, considering the sudden thought. But really, she said to herself, why not?

"I wonder," she continued, "if I might plant something of my own here?"

Violet opened her eyes wide. "I don't see why not," she said, and without a doubt the bright tone was forced. "After all, this is your garden."

Rosamunde's trail was considerably less subtle than that of the monster which pursued her. She had simply attempted to outrun her attacker, and thus preserve her rider's life. Meri could hardly fault her; indeed, the simple strategy might have served her well, had she been a full Fey horse, rather than a quarter-breed accustomed to the very different horrors that prevailed on the Newmen side of the
keleigh
.

Or, if she had been pursued by a creature bound to the laws of the land.

He marked the moment that the monster left off its pursuit; it had paused, and sunk back on its haunches, the action driving its hooves deeper into the ground, and from that ungainly position it had leapt, small stones and crumbs of soil rolling away from the scars in the ground.

Afraid of what he might see, Meri nonetheless sighted along the line of that jump, but if there had been a similar fog-filled rectangle overhead last evening, it had since dissipated.

Unsettled, he continued, following Rosamunde's trail alone, now, until he came to the place where they had been beset, the enemy that should have fallen behind suddenly appearing at the fore.

He stood there for a dozen heartbeats, surveying the scene, the torn trees and trampled ground a fitting setting for the monster that his arrow had dropped not a hand's span from Rosamunde's front hooves.

The monster was not where he had left it. He had not, by this time, expected that it would be.

In the interests of thoroughness, he searched the area until he found the place where it had leapt into reality again, and he searched again, with his back against a ralif tree, for any untoward workings or unclaimed
kest
, but all he found was another strand of Rebecca Beauvelley's pretty hair, sparkling gold among the disordered grasses.

He untangled it and and put it with the other one in his pouch, his thoughts on darker matters. Deliberately, he crossed back to the ralif and put his back against its trunk.

"There was the carcass of a beast here," he murmured, tipping his head back and closing his eye.

Ranger, there was. It went to mist. They all do.

"
All?
" Meri opened his eyes in startlement. "How many have there been?"

Ranger—across how many sunrises? The elders believe that they have become more common
.

"Will it aid anything to set wards here?"

There was a pause, not long enough for him to grow restive.

The elders believe that a simple ward, such as you have constructed once this day, will suffice.
A much shorter pause, then,
You may draw upon my
kest
for the working, Ranger.

Meri sighed.

"Thank you," he said softly, regretting the necessity, yet unable to deny the need.

He centered himself carefully, brought the image of the ward to the front of his mind, and drew a green draught of the ralif's
kest
. His blood sparkled, the air tasted of brandy, and the wind filled his ears with seductive music. The image of the ward faded, and he panicked, terrified that he had drawn more than he could administer in his reduced state.

Will is the master of power
, his mother's voice told him sternly from memory.
Apply your will, Meri Wooden Head, or learn to enjoy subjection.

He took a deep, intoxicating breath, and concentrated his will. The ward wavered to the front of his thought; he touched it with the tree's rich
kest
—and shouted wordlessly as it blazed into actuality, spitting green fire; shouting dismay and distress.

Meri shook his head, not terribly surprised to find himself on his knees. He pushed to his feet, shivering in the absence of the tree's power, and made an unsteady bow.

"My thanks," he said to the ralif.

Our thanks, Ranger
, the tree replied.
You serve the trees well.

"What
is
this?" Violet unwrapped the cloth to reveal the gnomelike rootlings. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like."

"It's called duainfey," Becca said, from her seat on the bench. Violet had refused to allow her down in the dirt, and had claimed the planting as " 'prentice work." Becca tried not to let her disappointment show, while vowing that she would soon give herself the pleasure of working among Lucy Moore's plants.

"Those were given me by
my
mistress, on the other side of the
keleigh
, with her own 'prentice book. The entry there claims it a rare plant, even in its home land. I had planted some at—in my garden in Xandurana, and they took well to the soil there. It may be that they will flourish here, too. I would like to have a supply, for it has its uses."

Violet picked one of the rootlings up, turning it over curiously.

"Mind your fingers!" Becca cried. "They exude an oil, which will raise blisters." She held out her hand, showing fingers innocent of any mark, and Violet laughed.

"Yes, very good," Becca said, with a smile of her own. "But, truly, Violet, I was burned; my fingers would still show the scars from the blisters, if your superlative healing not reft them from me."

"Well." Violet put the rootling briskly on the ground, and studied her own fingers. "I don't appear to be burnt," she said, holding her hand out to Becca with a smile. "But I will be careful. How are these planted?"

"Roots down and spread, and buried only halfway," Becca said. Violet nodded and reached for the hand-spade.

"What are its uses?" she asked, her attention on her work.

Becca hesitated, which was, of course, ridiculous.

"It has several uses," Becca said slowly, wondering at her reluctance. Violet was learning the healing arts, and there were several plants hanging in Lucy Moore's workroom that gave surcease from pain.

"One leaf-tip, taken by mouth, is said to bestow clear sight. A tea made from dried leaves purifies the blood. The fresh leaves, taken by mouth, give release."

Violet looked up at her, brown eyes wide. "Release?"

"Surely you have been taught that healers have a duty to see that needless suffering not occur. Sometimes, release is all that we can give."

Violet nodded, looking down again, though she did not immediately continue with her work. "Gran did teach me," she said softly. "But, I don't, that is, I haven't—"

"Release is a gift," Becca said gently; "terrible, but a gift, nonetheless. It is not given often, and that is as it should be."

Violet finished planting the first rootling and reached for another.

"Have you," she asked, "ever given the gift, Miss Beauvelley?"

Becca closed her eyes, remembering the feel of the leaf in her mouth, the pleasant wash of warmth in her blood.

"No," she said softly, "I have not."

It had required the expenditure of
kest
, and a careful examination of his memory, for he did not dare to allow a false or fog-born fact to thwart him now. However, all was at last in readiness. Soon, the heat would cease to trouble him.

Soon—oh, very soon—Zaldore would be brought to a full and complete understanding of her error.

Complete, yes.

Smiling, Altimere wound his watch with a paternal air, glancing away into the mists. He dismissed the utensils from his meager luncheon, and gave the ralif tree leave to dissolve.

For this endeavor, and taking into account his dependence on the very mists that ensnared him for his materials, he had decided to return to the most basic forms he could recall. The very crudeness of the symbol-bound working would mark out any attempt of mist-shaped—or other—intervention.

There was some singing involved, not unlike that with which his Rebecca's people encouraged their seeds to grow, in the land across the
keleigh
. His voice was thinned by the mist, and made an unhappy creak, but 'twould serve.

Also required was the drawing of lines, which had been problematic until he had managed to freeze a thin rectangle of mist, and call a scalpel to his hand. He created and lit several cone-lights so that they flickered in the star patterns favored by the ancients; then he recited the words from his memory, carefully.

The star he had scribed on the frozen mist was his own height twice, and as exactly drawn as one might; he stood within the inner circle's circumference, breathed deeply and confidently, and began the working.

He called all the sound within this worldlet to him, and he called all the light that was not of his own will. He marked that the dial of his watch gave off eight spots of light; and further marked that dropping a pebble created no new sound.

From his pocket, he withdrew a hand mirror, and held it up.

The light dimmed, first the dial-points on his watch, then the rest, from whatever sources they came. Dark grew slowly at first, then faster, and yet faster, as the light fell into the depths of the mirror, now a reservoir of power held in his left hand. The place around him palpably shrank, and the heat grew even more stultifying.

He spake a word, shrinking the bubble of stuff nearer about him, deliberately concentrating all of the
kest
it had—on him.