Longeye (32 page)

"Think of the
keleigh
, which one might liken to a wall, or, more properly, to a storm coming from the sea, all in motion in a great swirl, with winds and lightning."

Here he demonstrated the inner and outer spiral, by animating a passing thread of mist.

"What we did in defense of the Vaitura was to create such a form of chaotic materials, that stretches and shrinks time, steals energy; material that confuses and leaches life. When the material was gathered and the forms imposed, we set what we had made into motion around the Vaitura, sealing us away from the devastation that had been visited upon our enemy.

"Such a storm is not an easy thing to build; it required much
kest
, much energy, and a very great deal of will, as well as crafting beyond rapid description."

"And who bade you build this great and terrible work?" Dusau asked.

Altimere inclined his head. "We acted as required, at the behest of the Queen and the Constant."

He paused again, then went on, speaking as much to himself as his listeners.

"We accomplished what was asked of us, losing many of ours, and many more trees, and then, perforce, we rested and moved on, those few of us who were left, for the Vaitura was safe.

"Yet the action of the
keleigh
is not just in the plane of growing things. This we saw as we worked, assuming that the motions and equations were of theoretical interest at best, since they required energies far above those we intended to work; and thus what we overlooked was that we were not dealing with something as simple as the light of the sun on a warm day. We had assumed the trees of the forests we used for power, and the lives of those heroes who stayed with their trees as we worked, we assumed that these were destroyed, consumed by chaos.
Gone
."

He paused, then waved at a misty hilltop crowned with silvered trees.

"Alas, as we now see,
kest
cannot be so simply eliminated. The trees we thought destroyed have not properly subsumed and returned to the Vaitura, but linger on in this unnatural form. Since the
keleigh
continues to spin, and continues, therefore, to suck
kest
from the world, the
keleigh
continues to grow."

"And we can do nothing, any of us?" Cai challenged.

"There is that which can be done, but it cannot, as I said, be done from here. I am the last of the artificers who built the
keleigh
. I know what needs done to stop it."

"You, and no other?" Skaal's question was low and potent.

Altimere nodded, sober and firm.

"This seems likely. No one else in the Vaitura has the keys to the building. No one in the Vaitura can call on the
kest
I have available there."

He looked at them, one by one by one, seeing their service etched on their faces, and their desire to do something in their eyes.

"You say the heroes have devised a way to evict their trees from the
keleigh
?"

"That looks to be what they're about," Dusau agreed.

"Then I think it is decided," Altimere said briskly. "We must go to the heroes at once, and have them put me across. Once I am in the Vaitura, I will—on my
kest
and my honor—bring the
keleigh
down."

"The Fey must make things," Becca said when they stopped next to a spring for waybread and tea, and to refill the water bottles.

She raised her cup, and pointed at the tea tin. "There is a trade market at Selkethe, and another at Lunitch!"

She felt a jolt of distress, and blinked at Meripen Vanglelauf's stern face.

"Assuredly, the Fey make things, and there has always been trade. Do you think that the clothes you wear are woven only from
kest
?"

"But—"

He took the cup from her hand, filled it with spring water, and handed it back to her.

"This is not tea," she said.

"It will be when you add the leaves and heat the water," he answered, filling his own cup. He glanced at the Brethren, apparently asleep on its back across the spring. "Would you like tea, Little Brother?"

"Tea," the Brethren said, mimicking the Ranger's voice. "Would you like
tea
, Little Brother?"

"I'll take that as a no," he said, and reached for the tin. He sprinkled a few dry leaves into the water. Becca felt a brief warmth, saw a flash of green above his cup, and smelled spicy tea.

"We are children of the Vaitura," Meripen Vanglelauf said as Becca dropped a pinch of dried leaves into her cup. "If I wish to make a cup, I will find a piece of fall wood and shape it."

Becca frowned, drawing her
kest
carefully to the cup. The water boiled, and she withdrew the heat immediately, proud of her control.

"Would you," she asked, "use a knife, or
kest
to form it?" She looked up at him. "Your cup out of wood."

He tipped his head, as if it were a fair question to which he must give proper thought. "I would by preference use a knife, for my father taught me the pleasures of carving when I was a sprout. He carved his arrows by hand, as well, with only a veneer of
kest
to finish them, and to ensure that they flew true."

"The Fey I saw at the market at Selkethe was dealing in fabric," she said slowly, recalling the day as one might recall a pleasant dream. "A . . . friend . . . told a story of her grandmother, who had a pitcher from a Fey at market. Whatever went into it stayed fresh and never soured."

"Do you ask me how such things are made?" He gave her a faint smile. "Why not work out how it was done, yourself? Who knows when you might need a pitcher?"

Becca gave a small, and perhaps not quite ladylike snort. "For the pitcher . . . let me see. I would dig the clay and shape it, and fire it with my
kest
."

"I," Meripen Vanglelauf said, "would dig the clay, afterward shaping and firing it with
kest
, for my hands have not learned to make pitchers. Then a veneer of
kest
, to preserve whatever is placed within."

Becca sipped her tea, finding it pleasant. She lifted the cup. "Why drink or eat at all, then? Why not simply ask the plant to give you its essence?"

"Because drinking tea is pleasant," Meripen Vanglelauf said repressively, "and there is no harm in pleasure, so long as it harms none." He sighed. "Do you always have so many questions?"

Becca laughed. "I was a trial to Elyd, too," she said, and swallowed suddenly, lifting her cup to hide the sudden rise of tears.

"Who is Elyd?"

She cleared her throat. "He was . . . he cared for the horses, at Artifex," she said slowly. "I—he was my friend. Elyd Chonlauf. I think that—I think he may have been . . . subjugated. There were things he could not seem to remember, and when he looked at the trees beyond the wall . . ."

"If he was out of Chonist Wood, then it is probable. That land falls within Altimere's honor—or had done, before I slept."

"But—the Queen's Rule . . ."

Meripen Vanglelauf shrugged. "Altimere would not necessarily bide by the Queen's Rule. It is, however, just as possible that your friend had fallen to his will before the Queen's Rule was lain down."

"He—" Becca shivered, remembering. "Elyd. I had asked him if he had been in the war, and he—but he didn't know how long he had been in Altimere's service."

"Do you recall everything of your time under Altimere's protection?"

She blinked tears away. "Apparently, I was often asleep."

"We share another bond, then," he said, with forced lightness.

"I wonder that one who was pressed into sleep imposes it upon another so lightly," Becca said, snappish in her distress. She leaned across his knee to rinse her cup in the flow from the spring.

Fire crackled, green and gold. Becca gasped, her body aflame with desire, as if Altimere's will rode her of old. She moved, slowly, feeling the stroke of power along her flesh. Yearning, thoughtless, desiring, she reached for Meripen Vanglelauf, seeing in his scarred face a pure and infinite beauty; feeling the play of his
kest
against hers, knowing that he, too, desired.

"No."

Horror shuddered through her, and a tangled vision of pain: knives, corrosion, and a woman's hopeless scream.

"No!" Meripen Vanglelauf cried, revulsion in his voice.

Becca twisted, falling back onto her elbow. Pain lanced, scarcely noted in the greater pain of self-loathing. Shivering in mortification, she turned her head away, and wished that the ground would split open and swallow her.

Peace, Gardener
. It was, she thought, an elitch tree that spoke.
Ranger, peace
.

Foolish as it no doubt was, she was comforted by the tree's voice, and—even more foolish—she thought that the Ranger was, as well.

Keeping her eyes steadfastly on the ground, she pushed herself to her feet, retrieved her fallen cup, and packed it away. From the corner of her eye, she saw Meripen Vanglelauf rise, shrug on his pack, and pick up his bow.

"We should go on," he said, perhaps to her, or perhaps to the Brethren, who seemed to still be slumbering in the grass.

"So soon?" it asked, leaping to its feet. It shook its horns, whether in frustration or amusement, Becca could not tell.

"Not far now," it said, and moved off at a brisk trot.

Fool
, Meri berated himself.
You already carry the burden of her
kest
—must you meld with her, too; make her a part of yourself forever? As Faldana is—or was . . . Your
kest
was guttering; the Gardener filled a vessel all but empty.
He moved on, following Rebecca Beauvelley, who followed the Brethren. That was the worst cut. Faldana had given up her
kest
to him in that terrible land beyond the
keleigh
, for had she sublimated there, she could not have returned to her own beloved trees. No, Faldana's doom was to give all that she was and had been into the keeping of Meripen Vanglelauf.

Who had lost her, finally and forever.

A branch caught on the Gardener's pack and whipped back, very nearly slicing him across the cheek. Which would, he acknowledged, have been only what he deserved. He had been stumbling through the wood like a Sea Wise, scarcely minding what he saw.

Not that what he saw was much more cheering than his thoughts. The trees had been dwindling for some while, in numbers and in vitality. Those they walked among now were scarcely distinguishable from bushes, with a few yellowish leaves clinging to their spidery branches. He raised his head, and fancied he saw the purple sneer of the
keleigh
across the bright midday sky.

There was a rustle among the dead leaves and withered grass. Meri looked down in time to see a long, naked tail disappear into a broken trunk. It was no sort of animal he recalled, and he stretched his legs in order to come to the Newoman's side.

"Rebecca Beauvelley," he said.

She looked up at him; her face was wet with tears. The sorrow that this caused him filled him with horror.

"I wish," she said hoarsely, "that you would call me Becca—or Gardener. To be using my whole name, when we are to come under—under the influence . . ."

He understood her concern all too well; one kept oneself close, in such country, under the scrutiny of such forces.

"Very well, Gardener," he said. "And I will be Ranger, here. I wished to caution you that this land has been altered by the forces of the
keleigh
. You may see strange animals; certainly, you will see a dying off of the trees and small growth."

"I crossed the
keleigh
once," she reminded him. "I remember the country between Selkethe and the Boundary itself looked as if it had recently burned over. I don't recall it as so . . . wide . . . a patch. We are not near yet, are we?"

He pointed to the purpling sky. "Approaching," he said. "Be alert. The care of the trees is thin in such places."

"Why?" she asked, as they passed beside a elitch that had been split and blackened, as if by lightning. "Why was the
keleigh
built?"

Astonishingly, it was the Brethren who answered.

"The Old Fey built it to save themselves from their own folly," it growled. "They cut the ties that bind us to the world."

Becca the Gardener looked up to him, brown eyes wide.

"In sum," Meri told her, "that is precisely why—and how. The complete history is more complex, and encompasses half a dozen wars and games of dominion, such as the Elder High delighted to play."

"The Old Fey," she mused. "Like Altimere."

"That one," snarled the Brethren. "Kin-taker. World-breaker. Changer. Caught now in his own trap."

"Caught?" she asked, as a shadow moved at the edge of Meri's eye.

He spun, saw the horn, the rolling red eye, and danced sideways, narrowly avoiding the thrust at his chest.

"Run!" he yelled, as it stormed past, tangling the horn in a tumble of dry branches, and trumpeting frustration. Perhaps, Meri thought, breathlessly, the care of trees was not . . . completely dead in this place.

The creature screamed again, and reared. The knotty twigs resisted . . . one broke.

Meri turned, saw the Gardener standing as if transfixed, her eyes wide and her lips parted, and grabbed her arm, dragging her along with him until her feet began to move under her direction.

"Run!" he shouted again.

Hooves pounding behind them, they ran.

The unicorn burst from the brush and charged, missing the Ranger by less than a finger's width. Becca stared as the mad whiteness thundered by, its horn momentarily entangled in a knot of dead sticks.
A unicorn
, she thought. There seemed to be room for only that one thought in her head. She stared, her feet rooted . . .

 . . . and uprooted as Meripen Vanglelauf yanked her along with him, very nearly twisting the arm from its socket in doing so. Once she was running, the unicorn out of sight, she could think again—and she could be afraid.

"Run!"

Becca ran. From behind came a scream of pure fury and the pounding of hooves. Ahead, the path twisted and turned between the blasted remains of trees. She ran, pack pounding bruisingly against her back.