Part 9 (1/2)

He simply nodded without bothering to ask how she knew; little that happened in the village escaped Muina's notice.

”Well?”

”I couldn't ask. It seemed . . . wrong.”

”She would have done it. She's a good girl-loyal and true to those she loves.”

Another ember blazed to life in the carefully banked fire of his emotions. He took a moment to master his voice before he said, ”Aye. She is.”

”It never occurred to you to ask me?”

Excitement, hope, fear . . . too many embers to stamp out this time. ”You still possess the power?”

Her face creased in a smile. ”Let's see, shall we?”

Old as she was, Muina set a brisk pace, although she allowed him to take her arm and guide her through the rutted fields. As they hurried along the narrow forest trail, the familiar peace stole over him-and with it the familiar melancholy.

This was his place. This was where he belonged.

He scanned the shadowy depths of the forest as a man home from a long journey might study the face of his beloved. He noted the changes since he had walked the trail at the Spring Balancing: the ducklike quacks of the wood frogs and the distant whistles of the peepers in the wet-lands; the raw slashes on the trunk of a pine where a bear had clawed it; the violets and starflowers that now vied with primroses and snowdrops to decorate the forest floor.

He led Muina past the boulder, past the partially uprooted birch, and stepped into the glade of the heart-oak. As many times as he had stood here, he still felt the same awe when he stared up at his tribe's sacred tree. Here, his kin had offered sacrifices in celebration and propitiation, honoring their tree-brothers and their G.o.ds and a way of life that had survived plague and famine and the near-destruction of their world. Here, Tinnean had been initiated into the priesthood. And here, too, he had first glimpsed his nemesis after Morgath returned to the world in the body of a wolf.

Today, no such threat lurked. There was only the wind in the trees and the cooing of wood pigeons roosting in the branches. Through the thin canopy overhead, a few shafts of late afternoon sunlight burnished the uppermost branches of the heart-oak. Shadows cloaked the lower branches, adding an air of mystery to the aura of peace that pervaded the glade.

Tokens from past rites hung from the branches and nestled among the exposed roots. Birds and animals had long since devoured the gifts of food and berry wine, but the flint arrowheads and bone fishhooks remained.

He had brought no gifts with him. Instead, he took his dagger and reopened the wound at his wrist. Kneeling before the heart-oak, he allowed his blood to drip upon its roots as he had so many years ago. Then, he had offered his blood so that he-a hunter who had turned his back on the G.o.ds-might be permitted to enter the sacred forest and seek his brother's spirit. Today, he sought only the wisdom and comfort of the spirits who dwelled in the One Tree.

”Darak. It's nearly time.”

Only at sunrise and sunset, when the barrier between the worlds was thinnest, could the crossing be made. He retrieved the thin strip of nettle-cloth Griane had tied around his wrist, but in his haste, he fumbled it. He could feel his face flush as Muina knotted the bandage for him; he hated for others to see his clumsiness.

Muina, bless her, merely took his hand and led him sunwise around the heart-oak. Three times, they circled the sacred tree, Muina's chants mingling with the rustle of the dead leaves underfoot. In a strong voice, she spoke the ancient words of permission. Hand in hand, they stepped forward.

When Fellgair opened the way, it was like stepping from one world into another. The transition was less tranquil with a human guide. The forest blurred, trees melting into smears of gray and brown and green, color and light hurtling past him and around him, and only Muina's hand to tether him to his body and Muina's voice telling him that she would return at dawn.

Her hand slipped free. The nauseating sense of rootlessness faded as the world slid back into place: earth beneath his feet; a circle of giant trees; and in the center of the grove, the heart of this ancient forest, the One Tree.

Once it had dwarfed the others, a giant among giants. Now all but the birch towered over it. Morgath had destroyed the Tree that had stood in this grove since the world's first spring. As the world measured time, this one was just a sapling. Yet from the moment of its conception, it had proclaimed the miracle: the One Tree that was forever Two. From those roots, from that slender trunk, two branches forked, one studded with the dark red buds of the Oak and the other drooping under the weight of the spiny leaves of the Holly.

Darak stepped between the gnarled roots that had once been his brother's feet and placed his palm on the trunk. In the days following Tinnean's transformation, the bark had been supple, retaining the faintest warmth. Now only its creamy color gave evidence that this had once been the flesh of a man.

Not even a man. Just a boy. Keirith's age.

Even before his brother's body underwent its transformation, Tinnean's spirit had altered. Darak had merely touched the World Tree; Tinnean had dwelled in it. No man could remain unchanged after hearing its song, a song that had echoed in the blood and bones and spirits of every being since the creation of the world. The G.o.ds who dwelled among its silver branches, the creatures who lived in the middle world, the spirits of the dead in the sunlit Forever Isles that floated in its roots-the World Tree linked them all. And now Tinnean's spirit dwelled with the Oak and Holly, forever bound to the Tree-Lords and to the ancient being that was the consciousness of the world.

Tinnean Tree-Friend, the tale named him. And Darak Spirit-Hunter and Griane the Healer. When they had first crafted the tale, he and Sim clashed repeatedly, the old Memory-Keeper arguing that people needed a hero, while he argued just as fiercely that people needed to know that a hero was only a man-a man who had suffered frostnip and hunger, whose stomach had churned when he first encountered the Trickster, who had screamed in agony when Morgath mutilated his body.

”They know you froze your a.r.s.e off,” Sim said, dragging his fingers through his spa.r.s.e white hair. ”Everyone freezes their a.r.s.es off in winter. That's not a tale worth telling.”

”Are we telling a tale or the truth?”

”We're telling a tale that conveys the essence of the truth. There's a difference.”

”Perhaps we could say your breath froze upon your lips,” Sanok suggested.

”But it didn't. Our snot did.”

Old Sim scowled. ”I'll never make a Memory-Keeper of you.”

”Then why are you trying?”

And as he did at least once a day in those first moons, he had jumped to his feet and marched to the doorway of their hut, only to be stopped by Sim's voice. ” 'Tell the tale,' Tinnean said.”

Darak glared at the Tree. ”You might have whispered. Once Griane heard-and the Trickster . . . well, without that, I might have gone on being a hunter. Or a shepherd. Or something other than a G.o.ds-cursed Memory-Keeper!”

The drooping boughs of the Holly moved, stirred by the faint breeze. ”And don't you start, Cuillon. If I didn't love you both, I'd swear it was a conspiracy. To make the man who didn't like talking choose the one life-path-the only one, mind you-that relied on words.”

He stroked the pale trunk of the Tree. ”Aye. Well. When Sanok dies, and it's left to me to tell the tale at Midwinter, I'll tell my version. And Sim can howl all he wants in the Forever Isles.”

Old Sim and Sanok. The one had chivvied and chided him as he struggled to master the legends and chants and bloodlines preserved by generations of Memory-Keepers. The other had been infinitely patient, gently correcting his mistakes. It had taken both of them to shape a hunter into a Memory-Keeper. Like chipping flint with a hammerstone, bits of his old self flaking off little by little.

Darak shook his head. He had not come here to relive the past, but to seek help for his son.

In a halting voice, he told Tinnean and Cuillon about Keirith's abduction. It led naturally to the tale of their awful confrontation and spiraled back over the years, one tale intertwining with the next. By the time he finished speaking, his voice was hoa.r.s.e and the light had died. The trees were indistinguishable in the gloom, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught the flicker of movement as the Watchers darted in and out among them. ”The rootless ones,” Cuillon had called them, the spirits of trees long dead who guarded those still living. Once, he had feared them; now he only wished Keirith had such guardians to watch over him.

He sat down, his back against the Tree. ”Can you see beyond the First Forest, Tinnean? Can you see our boy?”

As always, his brother remained silent.

When they had embarked upon the quest to find Tinnean and the Oak, Cuillon had guided them. All he had to guide him now was the information he'd gotten from the captured boy and Urkiat's knowledge of the raiders.

Five days and nights for their giant boats. Four times that-maybe more-by coracle. Due south under the third star in the curving tusk of the Boar. Due south to the place called Pilozhat, Beloved of the G.o.ds. Pilozhat, the holy city of the people who called themselves Zherosi, the Children of Zhe. A city of stone nestled beneath a great mountain, where the lucky ones were sold as slaves and the unlucky ones-those with red hair like Keirith and Owan-were sacrificed to their sun G.o.d at Midsummer.

Darak forced his hands to relax. If he could rescue his brother from Chaos, he could rescue his son from Pilozhat.

At least, he would not be alone; Urkiat had guessed his intention and eagerly volunteered to go with him. He'd accepted immediately. He needed Urkiat's gift of language and his knowledge of the Zherosi. If he had to curb Urkiat's desire for vengeance, that was a small price to pay.

And a small pack for such a journey; Wolf would be displeased.

He closed his eyes, conjuring the image of his vision mate. Together, they had hunted the Oak and Tinnean in that dream-journey through Chaos. He had never reached for her since then. Once he turned his back on hunting, he no longer believed himself worthy of her. But he'd thought of her often in the intervening years, and sometimes he woke from dreams with her howl echoing in his spirit.

”Wolf,” he whispered, the name evoking the same longing and melancholy that had touched him when he entered the forest. Twice more he whispered her name and felt peace stealing over him.

Darak opened his eyes. Gheala peeped between the branches of the trees, spilling shafts of moonlight into the grove. A Watcher darted past the rowan. Bolder than the others, it abandoned the safety of the trees and approached him. For a heartbeat, he was transported back to that moment when he confronted Morgath. Then he heard the familiar yip, and his heart lurched again.

He was still scrambling to his feet when she launched herself at him. He fell backward, his joyous shout cut off in a gasp as his injured arm struck the ground. She b.u.t.ted her head against his, her rough tongue bathing his cheek. When he buried his, fingers in the thick fur at her neck and scratched behind the tattered left ear, her whole body wriggled with pleasure.

He tried to sit up, and she b.u.t.ted him again. The breath whooshed out of him as the huge forepaws landed on his chest.