by Sharon Lee
"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.
Was the sound of hooves from the rear getting louder?
The path ahead twisted—and vanished into a confusion of deadfall and scrub trees.
Becca twisted to the right—the hoofbeats were louder; and she could hear angry snorts. Ahead—ahead the path narrowed into a tunnel, branches and shadows woven together overhead.
"In there!" the Ranger panted, but she needed no urging to dive into the tunnel and run on, shoulders bent and pack scraping the indistinct ceiling.
From behind came a shriek of utter fury, reverberating along the walls of their sanctuary. Becca sobbed and clapped her hands over her ears, stumbling on as the walls of the passageway grew thinner and the light faded to black, starless night.
She was not running now; she was groping her way, hands before her, glad of their golden glow, though the light pierced the dark barely a step ahead.
"Can you," she gasped, when she felt she had regained enough breath to power her voice, "see in the dark?"
"Somewhat," came the winded reply. "But not in this."
"If we should come to a precipice . . ."
"Hold a moment, and I will take the lead."
"So you may have the honor of falling to your death first?" Becca asked. She heard a gasp from behind her, and was sorry that she had not seen how the laugh had altered his face.
"Wait," he said, then. "There's light ahead."
She squinted. "I don't— Yes. I do see it. Let us hope that there isn't a unicorn waiting for us at this side."
"What," Meripen Vanglelauf said as they inched onward, "is a unicorn?"
"A storybook creature, on—the other side of the keleigh," she said. "Have you never seen one?"
"This is my first," he admitted. "What is their service?"
"They honor maidens," she said. "Mind! The tunnel turns downward."
The slope became more pronounced, running down toward a toothy oblong of light. Becca ran the last bit, to keep her footing, and burst from the cramped darkness, her pack scraping on thorns and rock, into a wide sandy field pocked with weeds.
Meri crouched at the end of the tunnel, staring out at a bleached and dying land. There was not a single tree within the sight of his shorteye, and the air tasted of sand. In the near distance, a structure loomed, built of stone and murdered trees. He leaned back into the comforting darkness and swallowed against the surge of sickness. Newmen! Had they killed every tree on the land in order to build that terrible dwelling?
Becca the Gardener was on her knees, taking up a handful of sandy soil as if she hoped to learn something from it—perhaps, he thought, she sought after the manner of its doom. For himself, he had seen enough. There was indeed a hole in the hedge.
"Gardener," he called. "Let us return."
She looked up at him, her face vague, as if she had forgotten him entirely.
"Return?" she repeated. "No, we cannot."
"There is nothing more to see," he said, keeping his voice sweet. The emotion quivering along the kest-bond was something akin to pain, and, though he did not understand her service, certainly he could imagine that a gardener would only be distressed by this wasted place. "The Brethren told true. We take it now to Sian, and she to the philosophers."
"No," she said again. She dropped the handful of sand and pointed at the monstrous structure of wood and stone. "That is—that is my father's house! I grew up here!" She turned to stare at him where he sheltered yet inside the tunnel.
"What has happened?" she cried. "How could the land have died so quickly? I have only been gone a matter of months—perhaps, perhaps a year. This—" She waved a despairing hand, indicating, Meri thought, the desolation surrounding her—"what could have caused this?"
"That is why we must take this to the philosophers," he said, reasonably. "Come, Gardener."
"You may go," she told him, rising to her feet and turning her face away. "Your service is not here. Mine is."
With no further ado, and without a word of farewell, she walked off, away from him and toward the house that she claimed as her own.
Meri watched her leave, walking balanced and determined, very much, he thought, like a Ranger returning to her own wood after a weary wandering. For himself, he would no sooner set foot on this tainted, terrible land than—
His muscles twitched and he was jerked up unceremoniously, banging his head on the ceiling of the tunnel.
"No," he whispered, but the sunshield heeded his plea not at all. Bound, compelled, he walked after the slim, determined figure, stiffly for the first few steps, as horror induced him to fight the compulsion, then at a light run, as he accepted his doom and raced to catch her up.
Chapter Twenty-Six
She would go 'round by the kitchen, Becca decided, and she would ask Mr. Janies to bring her to Dickon. She would ask him not to mention her visit to Mother, and, most especially, not to Father. Not until she had discovered the nature of the calamity that had overtaken them. A surprise, she would say. A surprise visit. Mr. Janies had been her friend, before. Perhaps he still was.
The front gate was open, the proud spearheads in desperate need of paint. How, she wondered, had all this happened so quickly? Surely, she was looking at the result of years of neglect, not mere months, and yet—
Panic closed her throat; gasping, her heart squeezed with horror, she almost fell, threw out a hand and braced herself against the gate.
From behind her came a sound—as of a choked-off scream. She shook her head, turning, and found Meripen Vanglelauf on his knees in the dust, one shaking hand extended to her.
"That metal . . ." he whispered hoarsely. "Come away."
"Metal—?" She stared at him. "It's only iron."
"It burns, and the wounds do not heal." He shivered, and turned his face aside, as if the very sight of the gate pained him. "Root and branch, Becca! Come away!"
Carefully, she let go of the gate, and looked down at her palm. Satisfied, she walked back to his side, and knelt.
"Look," she said gently, as she would speak to a raving and frightened patient. She dared to touch his shoulder, pained to feel him shiver so. "Meripen. I'm not hurt."
Slowly, he turned his head, stared at her unmarked hand. His face was damp with sweat, horror etched along the austere lines . . .
Becca raised her hand and touched his face, tracing the pale scar across his left cheek. "You crossed the keleigh," she said softly, knowing it as surely as he had told it out. "And someone—one of my people—did this to you."
He closed his eye and bowed his head; she felt a flare of agony, saw for a confused moment limbs bound in iron chain, the corrosive wounds weeping; a stone floor and a woman's naked body convulsing, an iron bar thrust inside of her—
Her stomach rebelled. She swallowed—and again, forcing the sickness away.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, inadequately. "I— Why did they do this?"
"Is there some act that we might have performed that would justify it?" he asked, bitterly. "Faldana died of their treatment, and I, too, had she not given up the last of her kest to me." He gave a shuddering sigh. "They wanted to learn how we had made the gold piece the market woman demanded as payment for a loaf of bread."
"A gold piece for a loaf of bread?" Becca asked, but—it would have been obvious that the two were strangers. And what plain woodsman had such hair as Meripen Vanglelauf? A canny woman might make of such strangers what she would, and gold was more certain wealth than a pitcher.
As for making the coin—that she thought, dismally, would have been no trick at all for one trained in Fey philosophy.
"No," she said to Meripen Vanglelauf's bent head. "There is nothing you could have done that would have justified such treatment." Nothing? she asked herself. What of Altimere?
"I am ashamed for my people," she said, and that was true, whatever had befallen her at different hands.
He shook his head. "The trees were at pains to remind me that the folk at New Hope Village were not the same sort," he said, his voice sounding only weary now. "It is the same with us—as you know to your sorrow."
She cleared her throat. "Why are you here?" she asked him. "I had thought you on your way back to Sian."
He made a soft sound; it might have been a laugh.
"The sunshield binds us, even here."
Becca sat back on her heels, and glanced over her shoulder at the house.
"Meripen, I must go into this—into my—home, and speak to my brother. I—the land here was bountiful when I left it, mere months ago. The Landed—we are stewards of the world! I must know what has happened, and if there is—if there is anything I might do to repair this . . ."
He nodded, though he did not look up.
"There is iron," Becca persisted, "in the house. Will the sunshield allow you to wait for me here?"
He sighed and raised his head, his face calmer now. "I doubt that it will allow us to become far separated," he said. "And I would rather not be forced." He looked past her, to, she thought, the gate. "All is well, so long as I do not touch it."
She looked at him sharply. "Is that true?"
"As true as it can be," he answered. "I will stand behind you and keep my hands close."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I—"
"It is your service," he interrupted, rising to his feet with a fraction of his usual grace. He held his hand down to her, and after a moment she took it and allowed him to raise
her to her feet.
The kitchen garden at least was well planted, though the plants were not as lush as she recalled. Perhaps, she thought, her time in the Vaitura had altered her sense of what a proper garden ought to look like.
Or perhaps, she thought, it had not.
She paused with her hand on the latch of the kitchen door. "This is iron," she said softly. "The room we are coming into—"
