by Sharon Lee
There was a copper glow ahead, like a hearth fire comfortably banked for the night.
"Beneath the elitch," Becca said, though it was more for her own comfort than her companion's interest. Meripen Vanglelauf had not addressed a word to her since they had begun the walk back to the village, nor acknowledged her presence in any way.
While she could scarcely blame him for not wishing to associate with someone who keenly felt herself to be beneath contempt, still it would have been . . . comforting to have had some conversation.
The easewerth had numbed the pain in her hand, and she had managed to snatch up a few leaves of fremoni along the way. She did not really want to think about the state of her feet, which had worrisomely stopped hurting some while back, nor the spectacle that she would present to Elizabeth Moore, who was even now calmly awaiting their arrival.
Meripen Vanglelauf walked beneath the elitch branches, knelt at Elizabeth Moore's feet, and lay the boy across her lap.
"He lives, Tree-Kin," he said, his voice cracked and wavering.
"Thank you," Jamie's mother said, and though her voice was even, it was not, Becca thought, quite calm. "He knows the dangers of night-walking, Master Vanglelauf."
"It was not the night that did this," Becca said, stepping up to stand beside the Fey. "And Master Vanglelauf abases himself for no reason." She swallowed. Meripen Vanglelauf rose and moved three good paces to the side, leaving her alone before Elizabeth Moore, watching wretchedly as she smoothed her son's hair off of his forehead.
"I—the error, the anguish, any hurt he has taken—" Tears stung her eyes and ran down her cheeks, doubtless, Becca thought disjointedly, increasing her aspect of wanton madness.
"I am so very sorry," she whispered. "It is all my fault."
"Perhaps not all," Elizabeth Moore murmured surprisingly, her eyes on her son's face. "It cost you a number of years of apprenticeship, and a great many mistakes to become a healer, did it not, Miss Beauvelley?"
Becca blinked. "Of course," she said slowly. "It is a complex craft, and there is much to learn."
"So my mother often said," the other woman said softly. "Master Vanglelauf, our good lady tells me you were schooled for a time at the Queen's Court."
"So I was." His voice, though cracked, was sardonic. "Nor may I tell you at this remove which lessons were the more difficult—statecraft, of which I am an indifferent practitioner at best—or philosophy, of which my tutor granted that I had learnt just enough to prevent my burning down Xandurana."
"So it may be," Elizabeth Moore murmured, "that . . . whatever . . . befell Jamie this evening was not all the fault of Miss Beauvelley?"
Becca heard Meripen Vanglelauf sigh.
"We will commence her schooling—tomorrow," he said, not with the best grace. "For tonight . . ."
"For tonight," Elizabeth Moore interrupted, "we could all use some sleep." She rose effortlessly, her son lolling in her arms. "May I call on you, Miss Beauvelley, if Jamie wakes to need healing?"
Becca's throat closed. "Of course," she whispered; "though it is more than possible he will not wish to see me."
"Sleep heals much," Elizabeth Moore observed, and inclined her head gravely. "Thank you both, for fetching him home. I know I'll not have him much longer, so every day is precious to me. Good moon to you both."
"Good moon, Tree-Kin," Meripen Longeye murmured, bowing.
"Good moon," Becca whispered.
She watched until Elizabeth Moore had entered her house. When the door had closed behind mother and child, and Becca looked about her, it was to discover that she was alone.
Sighing, she turned and limped toward Lucy Moore's house. She would, she thought, go to the workroom, and call Nancy to bathe her. After, she would dress her own hurts, and perhaps take a drop or two of bitirrn cordial, to insure a dreamless sleep.
The estate at Tarsto had been his entry point, but surely, Altimere thought, that had been a matter of convenience for Zaldore and not an indication of where his hot pocket prison had been located with regard to the geography of the Vaitura.
The keleigh, after all, rotated. That had been the insight he had provided himself when the keleigh was incepted: without that rotation the stability of the protective wall would be minimal and variable. That was his artifice, and it had come from his long interest and study of the strange rules of physical objects. Rotation gave duration. He had little doubt that the mock-keleigh he had been trapped in had a motion also, else it would have required kest at a far higher density than the keleigh in order to maintain it.
It was the rotation of the keleigh as a whole which was behind the unpredictable nature of the interior, for it was not as glass nor stone nor wood, but rather a smoke—a dream—of kest, constantly in disarray.
Their first attempt at protection from the forces they had unleashed upon the enemies of the Vaitura had resulted in a wall impenetrable and deadly to Fey and foe alike—and insupportable for more than a few heartbeats by any energy source they knew, save perhaps the very oceans.
The second attempt had been much closer to the keleigh now in the world, but it, too, pulled energy at too rapid a rate. That problem being solved by the application of a dimensional spin, it became the keleigh which even now protected the Vaitura. That it existed on kest had been a fact so basic that it need not be stated, much less discussed; everything existed on kest, after all.
The bitirrn cordial gave her dreamless sleep, though not so deep that she failed to rouse when Violet Moore came into the workroom in the early morning. It had been set at dinner the evening before that she and Becca would go foraging for marisk and the other low supplies. There was no possibility of that now, of course, not when Becca had almost murdered the girl's brother.
She kept very still in the little bed behind the screen, lashes down and breathing slow, even when Violet put a callused hand against her cheek, and then put her fingers against the heart-point under the jaw.
"Sleep is the great healer," Violet muttered, which Becca thought might have been something her grandmother had used to say. All she really cared about, though, was that the girl left her alone.
After Violet's departure, Becca lay still, sleepless now, her stomach knotted with shame; tears leaking weakly from her eyes.
Last night—the dream, which had so vividly recalled the details of her willing enslavement, and the moments leading to Elyd's death. She had escaped that nightmare, only to find the boy, whose features were so similar—he had seemed to her confused mind to have been Elyd, and in deadly danger from her. She had thrust him away with everything that was in her—surely, that had been—if not a noble act, then born at least from a benevolent desire?
Becca hiccuped, and pushed her damp face into the pillow. In truth, she thought bitterly, it had been fear that had motivated her—fear that she had not banished the dream, but only driven it into a horrifying new channel; fear that she would, given the opportunity, and entirely free of Altimere's compulsion, act precisely as she had done before.
You might have murdered that boy, Rebecca Beauvelley, she told herself bitterly. You might murder him yet, and all the good folk in this village. Sian was right to have put the sleep on you. She ought never to have woken you at all.
"What shall I do?" she whispered.
Becca turned over on her back and stared up at the ceiling with its dried bunches of mary's gold and rosemary hanging from the eaves. She thought, tentatively, of the duainfey rootlings growing in the garden. In another day or two, at the rate that plants grew in the Vaitura, they would put forth leaves. She might, if she wished, soon complete that which had been interrupted.
To her considerable astonishment, she found that she did not want to die. The calm acceptance of the inevitable that had accompanied her former decision to take her own life was absent. More than that—she had made promises. She supposed that Rosamunde might find a willing rider in Meripen Vanglelauf, who seemed utterly besotted. But even if she were of a mind to accept him, that did
not absolve Becca of her promise that the two of them would never be parted. And Nancy, who had risked all to leave Altimere's service, and enter her own! Who would care for Nancy's interests, and, and renew her kest when she ran down?
Who, indeed, would teach the fragile young healer, and help her find faith in her skill and intuition?
No, no. She could not die, not now. It was entirely out of the question. And yet, something—she must do something. She was a danger to those who were innocent, or weaker than herself.
She—
We will commence her schooling—tomorrow.
Becca sat up. "Will he?" she demanded. "Will Meripen Vanglelauf teach me?"
He said so, before tree and tree-kin, the elitch pointed out, sounding, just slightly, amused.
Becca chewed her lip. After last night, she would rather—well, no, she had already decided that she couldn't die, now hadn't she?
Meripen Vanglelauf might loathe her, but he had promised to teach her, before tree and tree-kin. She gathered that held a certain potency, for one who was a Ranger, and beloved of the trees.
Becca nodded, and threw the blanket back.
"Nancy!" she called.
"Good morning," she said, when Elizabeth Moore opened the door. She couldn't quite manage to lift her head and meet the other woman's eyes. It had taken all of her courage to come here and stand in place like a civilized adult, until her knock was answered.
"I wonder," she said to the door-stone, "how Jamie does?"
"He roused at dawn, ate some bread-and-jam and drank water, then went back to his bed. I'm thinking he'll be just fine by evening, Miss, after he's gotten caught up."
"I'm sure he will be," Becca said hoarsely. She cleared her throat. "Well. Thank you, I just thought—"
"Would you like to see him, yourself?" Elizabeth Moore asked, standing aside. "For all my mother was a healer, and Violet becoming, I never learned the lore, myself."
Becca's heart froze in her chest. See him? She could never face—but he was asleep, and he had suffered a shock to his system, and she was a healer.
It was her duty, if nothing else.
"Yes," she said faintly, and forced herself to raise her head and meet Elizabeth Moore's ironical blue eyes. "I would like to see him. Thank you."
The first thing she thought, seeing him abed, with his hair tumbled against the pillow and his face slightly damp with sleep, was that he looked not at all like Elyd. Certainly, his skin was brown, as Elyd's had been, and as, to a lesser degree, hers was. There, however, the similarity ended. Elyd's face had borne the marks of years of—Becca blinked at the thought—of perhaps years, she continued carefully, of having been bound against his will, denied even the solace of walking among the wild trees that he loved.
Becca shook her head. She had been so dazzled by Altimere's regard that she had been unable to see the suffering of a man she had called her friend.
"Miss Beauvelley?" Elizabeth Moore's voice was soft, perhaps worried that the healer had already seen something amiss that a mother's hopeful eye had overlooked. A fine healer you are, Becca scolded herself, and came to the side of the bed.
She put her hand against the boy's smooth cheek, and happily found no fever. A touch to the heart-point detected only the easy rhythm of rest. His breathing was deep and even, and he snored a little, like the burr of a happy cat.
"I think you are correct," she said, smoothing the boy's pillow before turning to face his mother again. "He was exhausted by last night's . . . misadventure . . . and is regathering his strength. If he does not wake of his own will by twilight, wake him yourself and insist that he eat a meal. A walk—in company with yourself or his uncle!—would not be amiss, followed by his usual night's rest."
Elizabeth Moore smiled. "Jamie's usual night's rest is as little as he can manage," she said, waving Becca into the hall ahead of her. "That child loves the night woods like no one I've ever known." She paused, her head tipped slightly to one side. "Saving his father."
"Perhaps this evening you can prevail upon him to stay in," Becca said carefully, "and rest."
"Perhaps I can, perhaps he will," Jamie's mother said with a small sigh. "His nature is beginning to firm. It's not that he means to be disobedient, but that he can't help himself."
Becca considered that. "You had said—last night—that he won't be with you much longer," she said. "Is he for 'prentice?"
"In a manner of speaking." Elizabeth Moore paused with her hand on the door. "He'll be going with his father into the wood, to learn his duties as a Ranger." She shook her head. "One for me and one for him, that was our bargain, and Palin never meant to be cruel. Neither of us counted on a mother's heart." She sighed. "Still, it's best to let him go. He'll never be happy bound by walls."
"One for you and one for him?" Becca repeated. "How— Forgive me!"
"How peculiar?" The other woman gave her an ironic smile. "So it must seem to you, or to anyone who had not listened since her cradle to Palin and her mother argue the difference between Fey and Newman and wonder if we were to marry, then would our children would bear the best of both, and serve the land more fully.
"When I came to think of marrying, Palin proposed his bargain, and I agreed, with my mother's full approval. It was a marvel to bear those two children and see how different they were." She smiled again, the irony vanished. "One for him and one for me . . .
"Well!" She shook herself suddenly, and pulled the door briskly open. "Thank you, Miss Beauvelley," she said, reaching out to touch Becca lightly on the hand. "Thank you for coming by. It must have been hard for you."
Becca nodded. "It was hard," she admitted, "but it had to be done." She took a breath and deliberately stiffened her back. "Besides, now there is something harder I need to be about."
"That will be your lessons with Master Vanglelauf," the other woman said wisely, and gave her a nod. "Be of good heart, Miss."
"Thank you," Becca said, stepping out onto the path. "I will do my best."
Something was operating . . . not quite as it ought.
Three times now Altimere had brought the image of Artifex before his mind's eye, raised his kest, and attempted to leave the keleigh.
Three times, he had failed in that simple process, though his will was as firm as ever.
He sat himself down by the ghost of a culdoon tree and produced a glass of wine from the mist. Though it was mist, still, it was easier to work, without that unpleasant and recalcitrant stickiness that had characterized the mist filling his late prison.
Sipping his wine, Altimere took stock.
It was apparent that he had not come out from Zaldore's prison unharmed. He had expended more kest than he had realized in combating the mists, and had of course gathered no more to him.
Though his will was firm, it was possible that his low levels of kest were interfering with his timely escape from the keleigh—a significant difficulty, as the keleigh consumed kest. The longer he remained within, the more would he be consumed by his environment, until he was but a memory of himself, wandering the mists.
He was therefore wise to have made his best attempts of escape before his power was depleted. And now that he had established himself already too low of kest to break free on his own, he must seek assistance.
Happily, assistance was to hand.
There were three anchor points for the keleigh inside the Vaitura. One was at Sea Hold—on the far side of the Vaitura from Zaldore's estate of Tarsto. The second was in Rishelden Forest, hard by Xandurana. The third was at Donich Lake, in the mountain country. Altimere had been to all of them, and could picture them clearly in his mind.
By their very nature, kest tended to pool at the anchor points. The pooled kest at some times was so large that it threw a shadow across the keleigh. That shadow could be followed, and the accumulated kest absorbed.
Once he had absorbed sufficient kest, he would be able to step out of the keleigh and into the Vaitura.
In theory, he thought, it should w
ork.
Chapter Nineteen
The Gardener comes, Ranger.
Meri stepped back into the shadow of the friendly culdoon tree and shook his head.
"I cannot do this," he whispered, hating the cramp of fear in his belly and the weakness in his knees. Teacher and pupil shared a special relationship—not a full melding, but yet an easy sharing of kest and knowledge. It had not been unusual, during his own tumultuous schooling, for his tutor to imbue his kest, so that he might learn the correct architecture of a particular subtle working from the inside. To engage with Rebecca Beauvelley in such a wise . . .
His stomach twisted, and he slumped against the culdoon, pressing his cheek to its foolish trunk.
