Part 61 (1/2)
”It's called a handkerchief,” Fellgair said. ”One day-in the not-so-distant future, I hope-the best people will use these instead of sleeves to wipe their faces.”
She did as he suggested, although it struck her that st.u.r.dy doeskin would do a much better job than this lacy little cobweb. Still, it was very pretty; perhaps the best people's noses didn't leak so much when they cried.
When she held it out to him, he examined the crumpled mess with obvious distaste. ”Keep it. Please. Perhaps you'll start a trend in your village.” He s.h.i.+fted his examination to her face and sighed. ”You're not one of those women who weeps beautifully, are you?”
”If the sight offends you, you may rescind our bargain.”
”On the contrary, I find red noses erotic.” He waggled his long tongue at her in such a parody of lewdness that she had to smile. ”Much better.”
”Thank you.”
”You do have a low threshold for compliments.”
”I meant for telling me about Keirith.”
”Ah. Well. It pleases me to please you.”
And that, of course, was why she was here: to serve his pleasure. Before sunset, she must lie with him. Allowing her to see Rowan, telling her about Keirith . . . these were simply his form of foreplay. He would never be so crude as to throw her to the ground and mount her. He wasn't Jurl. But it surprised her that he should think such gestures necessary. He was a G.o.d, after all. He could make her desire him, just as he had all those years ago. Knowing that Keirith was safe, knowing that he would protect Darak, she would offer herself willingly and consider the price cheap.
”Why do you want me?” Her face grew warm under his scrutiny, but she forced herself to add, ”You could have any woman in the world. Younger women. Prettier women.”
The kind of women who knew instinctively what handkerchiefs were for. Women who looked beautiful when they wept. Women with soft voices and softer bodies, their bellies unmarred by stretch marks, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s high and firm.
Instead of mocking her, his expression became thoughtful. ”I admire your courage and your fierceness. The marks on your belly testify to the pain of childbirth. Your b.r.e.a.s.t.s, to the children you've suckled. Your fingertips . . .” He took her hand and turned it over, one claw lightly caressing the green-tinged tips. ”. . . to the years of handling the plants that heal your people. And if your hair is streaked with white and occasionally less than tidy . . .” The dexterous claws moved. A leaf fluttered to the ground. ”. . . it bespeaks the battles you have fought and survived.”
The golden eyes filled her vision, as hot as the Summerlands sun. And then they vanished as he pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. His whiskers still tickled.
”Come. We'll find Rowan. And later, I'll show you other sights. There are many wonders in the world, Griane. I am only one.”
The mocking smile returned. Before she could reply, he tightened his grip on her hand. Again, the world dissolved, only to re-form moments later as time and s.p.a.ce stuttered to a halt. The blur of color and light solidified into images: a circle of trees around her, bare earth beneath her toes, and in front of her, a ma.s.sive wall of wood that she recognized as the trunk of the great oak under whose roots she had once slept.
The shadows were as deep as ever beneath the oak's branches, the leaves fluttered as gently in the slight breeze. But there was was something different: the luminosity of the runneled bark, the s.h.i.+mmering intensity of the green leaves. The spirit of the Oak-Lord now dwelled within the tree, sheltering here after his defeat at Midsummer. A living, immortal presence imbuing the tree with his power, filling the clearing with an energy so vital it made her skin p.r.i.c.kle. Warmth suffused her as if she'd drunk too much elderberry wine. Nay, not wine, but the water of the Summerlands, filling her with strength and peace. something different: the luminosity of the runneled bark, the s.h.i.+mmering intensity of the green leaves. The spirit of the Oak-Lord now dwelled within the tree, sheltering here after his defeat at Midsummer. A living, immortal presence imbuing the tree with his power, filling the clearing with an energy so vital it made her skin p.r.i.c.kle. Warmth suffused her as if she'd drunk too much elderberry wine. Nay, not wine, but the water of the Summerlands, filling her with strength and peace.
She rested her cheek against one of the roots that arched high over her head, wanting to be closer to the source of that peace. Then she heard the rustle of leaves and the creak of branches and looked up.
Fellgair was right. They looked just the same to her, that strange amalgam of tree and human, their faces grooved and rough, their green hands serrated like leaves. Her gaze flitted from the spiky needles that capped the pine-man's head to the mottled silver of the birch-woman's belly to-Maker spare her blus.h.i.+ng face-the large acorns that swung between the oak-man's legs.
And then she spied two eyes of Midsummer green. Smooth gray lips pursed in a knothole of surprise. A thick bead of sap hung suspended on one cheek. Nine delicate fingers reached out to touch her hair. Among the fading white blossoms at her wrist, Griane spied a circlet of bright red hair. Laughing in spite of the tears that blurred her vision, she flung herself into Rowan's strong arms.
There were advantages to traveling with a G.o.d. Fellgair interrupted her clumsy sign language to interpret for her. To her ears, he spoke the tribal tongue, but his words apparently made sense to the tree-folk. There was much leaf fluttering during the tale of her journey through the First Forest, but when she told them about Tinnean, it was as if a great storm blew through. She had to describe his transformation twice before they calmed.
Of course, the story of the boy who became a tree had more impact than her endless chatter about Darak and the children and her life in a village they had never seen. But they listened attentively and Rowan, at least, seemed to understand her anguish when she explained what had happened to Keirith.
When her voice finally ran down, Rowan touched her hair again. Lounging against a root, Fellgair said, ”She's wondering about the white streaks. Why this change happens now instead of in the autumn when leaves change their color.” His brief explanation of aging provoked more leaf fluttering. ”Rowan asks what you are becoming.”
”Becoming?”
”Aging is not a process they understand. Change is. Rowan is becoming more human. So she wonders what the nature of your change is.”
”What should I tell her?”
Fellgair shrugged. ”Tell her what you like.”
”But if the tree-folk are becoming more human, won't they die one day? I wouldn't want to frighten them.”
”Here, there is no death. There's a slight dimming of the life-force when the Oak-Lord returns to the One Tree, but only if he was destroyed-or if the balance of nature was irreparably damaged-would the creatures of the Summerlands die.”
”But the Oak-Lord's spirit is immortal. He's a G.o.d. He can't die.”
”Who told you that?”
”I don't know. Struath, I suppose.”
Fellgair rolled his eyes. ”Ah, the beloved shaman. Strong, secretive, and woefully misinformed. We're immortal in the sense that we neither age nor change, but we are not indestructible. Anything that is created can be destroyed. Even me.”
In a few sentences, he had changed her entire conception of the world. Yet it had existed thus since the Beginning. And would continue to exist as long as nothing happened to-how did Fellgair put it?-irreparably damage the balance of nature.
”How should I answer Rowan?” Fellgair asked.
”Tell her that I'll continue to change. My hair will grow whiter and my face will become grooved like an elder. And one day, my . . . my heartwood will become a b.u.t.terfly and leave the coc.o.o.n of my body and fly to a place like the Summerlands. And I'll live there forever. Unless I want to spin another coc.o.o.n.”
”What an appalling mix of metaphors,” Fellgair murmured.
”Well, I'm not a Memory-Keeper, am I? Tell her whatever you want.”
”Very well.”
”Except that I'm going to die.”
”Fine.”
”Or become infirm.”
Fellgair closed his eyes. His lips moved. She was quite certain he wasn't praying. But he simply told Rowan that the changes she had observed were natural to humans and occurred more quickly in their kind than in the tree-folk. When Rowan accepted his explanation with a small nod, Fellgair rose, licked the tip of his brush twice, and announced, ”Now we must leave you.”
”So soon?”
”It's nearly midday.”
She hadn't realized so much time had pa.s.sed. Much as she wanted to linger, she was wary of testing Fellgair's patience.
The tree-folk moved closer. She patted a barky arm, stroked a drooping catkin. When they turned their backs, she feared she had offended them. Then she realized they were forming a protective circle that excluded the Trickster.
She peered between Rowan and the oak-man. Fellgair still wore a pleasant smile, but his brush swished back and forth with more vigor than usual.
”Griane?”
Of course, she would go with him. He held Darak's life in his hands. But it puzzled her that he would ask so politely when he had the power to force the tree-folk to stand aside. Perhaps the Summerlands hindered his ability to make mischief. She doubted this place would encourage visits from the Unmaker's son.
”Griane.”