by Barb Hendee
She tried to shift her aching legs, but they were spread too far across the deer's wide back. Her backside was growing numb.
The black-gray pack leader slowed and the others with him. The deer'sgait decreased to a steady clomp, and Chap circled back to walk below Wynn.
"Are we close?" she asked. "We must be close. It has been so long…"
When she looked ahead, the forest had thickened across their path. As the deer carried her closer, the pack spread out to the sides.
Birches of ever-peeling bark grew close together. Their branches intertwined one into the next beneath thousands of leaves. Through their tangling masses, elm and ash trees rose, exposing their tops above. Below, brambles and blackberry vines glistened with thorns and filled the spaces between the trees' trunks.
Everything was silent, without even a breeze or the vibrant creak of a cricket.
Wynn looked off to her left. The tangled woods stretched out into the darkness. When she turned the other way, the trees ahead appeared to have shifted to different positions among the strangling underbrush. When she turned left again, a clump of saw grass had sprouted through the thorny tendrils of a blackberry bush.
Had it been there, or had it appeared when she was not looking? The top of a cedar spread above the birches, dark andstill, and she did not remember seeing it before. Was the forest toying with her again?
Wynn looked hopelessly about but saw no way through. Why had the pack or even the deer come this way, if this old growth barred the path? The way this wall of vegetation climbed and burrowed through itself was not natural.
The pack elder paced before the dense growth, and the other dogs trotted aimlessly about, arching necks and raising ears as they peered into it. The deer rolled its shoulders and shifted nervously beneath Wynn's thighs. It snorted and shook its antlered head.
These animals were as puzzled and disturbed as Wynn was. They had not seen this before.
The elder paced left along the wood's border and then suddenly lunged into it.
Wynn heard the rustle of leaves and bending vines from within the dense woods. The sound grew to a thunder of creaking branches and thrashing leaves. She grabbed the deer's coarse hair tightly as it back-stepped from the raucous sound.
A chokeberry bush ripped apart as the dark elder leaped out. Berries scattered in his wake like small black pellets. He stumbled, favoring one foreleg, and turned to stare back at the barrier. The rest of the pack circled hesitantly.
Lily turned right and darted for a birch of peeling bark, its lowest branches tangled in climbing blackberry vines.
"No!" Wynn cried out.
Chap went after Lily, but not before she tried thrashing her way into the thorny vines. She quickly retreated, never getting deeper than her shoulders.
Wynn shivered anxiously.
Chap remained on the barrier's edge as Lily arced around behind him. He rumbled softly in frustration. They could go back but not forward.
Wynn wondered if these woods were a safeguard, blocking trespassers from reaching Nein'a. But then howcould a prisoner be fed and cared for? Or had Nein'a been left here to die, long ago? Had the elves lied to Leesil just to bring him within reach?
Chap's growl rose to a snarl and startled Wynn as nausea hit her. Soft buzzing grew like a birch leaf skittering about within her skull.
Fay… my kin… now they choose to return.
Wynn slipped from the deer's back. Nausea became vertigo, and she dropped to her knees, struggling under the chorus of leaf-wings.
The last time she had heard this was at the northern gate of Soladran as Chap communed with his kin, the Fay.
Chap quickly brushed heads with Lily and then bolted into the open forest behind them. Wynn tried to get up, hand over her mouth, to stumble after him, but Lily raced around to block her way.
Before Wynn cried out to Chap, his single leaf-winged voice crackled in her mind.
I am here… show yourselves, my kin… I demand it!
Chap ran blindly through the trees, searching.But not with eyes and ears and nose.
His spirit expanded in rage, reaching in all directions, until he felt them as he had upon staring into the dense barrier woods.
That warped growth should not be there. He had seen this in Lily's memory flash. No majay-hi had ever encountered such a tangled mesh and it was coated with the tingle of Chap's kin.
They tried to stop the majay-hi-stop him-from reaching Nein'a.
Show yourselves! Answer me… now!
His coat rippled under a breeze whirling downward from the night sky. It increased to a strong wind, encircling him as it ripped up mulch. He pulled up short amid a hushed chatter of branches and turned a tight circle with a low rumble. The wind settled to a breeze once more.
Chap stood in a small clearing loosely walled by sycamores and beeches grown tall from roots sunk deep into the earth. Their branches interlaced like the limbs of sentinels holding hands, and movement within them made those limbs sway slightly.
He would not cower before them.
Why interfere now, when you have been silent… so useless? Why return after abandoning me for so long?
Branches behind him shook softly, and he wheeled about. Leaves rustling in the low whirling breeze shaped to a chorus of voices in his mind.
Further and further you stray from your path… your purpose… to keep the sister of the dead in ignorance and away from the Enemy.
Chap rumbled at one birch. A bend in its trunk looked too much like a figure seated in judgment. His shoulders tightened as he half-crouched to lunge.
Leesil is necessary to my task… our need. But his suffering serves no purpose. So why bar my way? Why can he not free his mother?
A long vine of red hyacinth rustled.
Return to your task… Return to the sister of the dead… Leave this land and keep her far from her makers reach.
That was no answer. In what other place could Magiere be farther from the Enemy's reach?
The hyacinth rustled more softly.
You have told your mortal charges far too much. So much that they might well turn upon a path that would end this world. Tell them no more, and take them from this place.
Chap's rumble grew. All Leesil wanted was freedom for his last remaining family.To be with his mother once again. Yet Chap's kin became obsessed with inaction.
And why could he not remember… more?
Bits and pieces learned in his mortal life still did not fit together. He did not retain enough awareness from existence among his kin to bind those pieces and fill in the gaps;
The branches shuddered around him.
You have taken flesh and lost our full awareness. Trust the path… trust in us. In flesh, you cannot understand all things.
Chap wavered in silence. He had relinquished eternity to follow the will of his kin. Once he must have known and agreed with their purpose, but now he could not remember why.
There must have been a reason… one that he had forgotten.
Wynn controlled her vertigo and tried to rush around Lily. Each time, the dog shifted or barked in warning and would not let her pass.
A chorus of a thousand shuddering and crackling leaves erupted within Wynn's head.
You have taken flesh and lost our full awareness. Trust the path… trust in us. In flesh, you cannot understand all things.
Wynn collapsed, wracked with dry heaves. She stared into the shifting dark trees on hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. She heard the Fay communing with Chap.
His snarling howl rolled through the forest.
Wynn turned toward Lily. "Oh please, just get out of my way!"
Lily cocked her ears. Wynn crawled to a nearby cedar and clawed up its rough bark to her feet. The others of the pack ranged around her, but none came near. They only watched her and Lily in puzzlement.
Before Lily could react, Wynn lunged around the cedar's far side toward the sound of Chap's cry.
Chap quivered as his howl faded from
his ears. Why did his kin treat him like a servant who owed blind obedience?
He had been one of them-one with them. He saw no possible harm in a son finding the mother who birthed and raised him. Nein'a did not want to see harm come to this world any more than the Fay, even though she had raised a son in her own caste's ways for her own purposes.
Chap's shudders faded, and he paced a slow circle, studying the sentinel trees. No voices came on the low rustling breeze. But they were still there-still waiting for him to acquiesce.
This had nothing to do with keeping Magiere from the enemy.
Why do you fear Leesil reaching his mother?
* * *
Chap's question rang in Wynn's head.
She spun around, lost once again with nothing to guide her. She had not taken one step. Yet if her eyes turned away for an instant, a vine, that patch of moss, or even the bare spot of earth to one side appeared to have moved.
Take the sister of the dead and leave. Go back to the human realms and never return to this land.
Wynn shut her eyes and threw her arms around an aspen trunk to keep from falling. The leaf-wing chorus drowned all other sensations. But she heard wind rustling branches not far off.
She opened her eyes, turning her face toward the sound, but Lily stood blocking her way. Wynn remembered Chap briefly touching heads with the white female. He had somehow told Lily to keep her behind.
"You must let me pass," Wynn whispered, uncertain how to make Lily understand.
Chap had communicated somehow with this dog. With Wynn's new ability to hear him and perhaps even communicate withhim, she wondered if she might do the same with Lily.
She inched forward, trying to pick up any thoughts from Lily. She did not believe Chap could read her own verbal thoughts-when they communicated, she spoke aloud, and he projected words into her mind.
"Lily," she said. "Can you understand me?"
Lily stared at her intently, but the white dog seemed only to be acting as guardian, and Wynn heard nothing in her mind as she did with Chap.
Wynn closed her eyes, this time trying to reach inside Lily's mind. There must be some way to connect and express her desperate need to reach Chap! But she felt nothing and saw nothing. Lily was not likeChap.
They could not speak to each other.
Wynn grabbed for Lily. The dog hopped away and spun about to face her again. Lily's shift was in the same general direction as the sound of chattering branches.
Wynn might not be able to navigate the forest-but Lily could. The dog betrayed Chap's path in every attempt to keep Wynn from following. Wynn tottered forward and grabbed for Lily again.
This time Lily did not hop away. She turned with ears perked to look through the trees. Wynn settled her hand on Lily's back.
A shudder ran through the dog's slender body, but her attention remained fixed toward the sound they both heard.
"Chap," Wynn whispered and pushed Lily forward. Had the dog heard Wynn use that name enough to know it? Wynn repeated it, again and again.
Lily took onestep, her crystalline eyes focused off into the forest, and whined.
Wynn could see Lily was afraid, but she shoved the dog forward.
Lily stepped slowly at first, weaving from tree to tree and peering around each before moving on. Wynn followed the white majay-hi as her only guide.
Chap's awareness sharpened to the presence of his kin. Within leaf and needle, branch and bark, and the air and earth, he felt their presence-their strained anticipation.
He let them wait.
Finally the breeze snapped sharply. The rustle of leaves was laced with the clatter of branches.
The elven mother is not important. Take your charges from here, and keep them in ignorance. Regain your faith in us.
Again no answer for Leesil's concern-and too much denial of Nein'a.
Even if Leesil fulfilled this blind scheme of his mother and her dissidents, why would Chap's kin not want such an Enemy to fall?
In his mind, he found no memory of his kin's concern for Leesil-only for Magiere.
From the moment of Chap's birth, he had known what to do concerning Magiere, and that a half-blood boy would be the means to that end. But he knew nothing of this hidden and evasive concern over Leesil and Nein'a.
Taking flesh was not the cause of this.
It was not the failing of his mortal mind to keep what he would have known among his own kind. Something more had happened in the infinitesimal instant between his place among his kin and being born into this world.
Why will you not speak of Leesil?
Only silence.
Why can I not remember this?
Unseen small creatures scurried among the branches and made dark spaces between them flex like mouths with lips of leaves and needles.
You are flesh, frail and faltering. Your heart and earthly senses weaken your purpose. It is little more than what we feared.
Chap cringed-but not from their admonishment. He remembered the first part of this journey as he had tried to lead Leesil to his mother.
In the deep winter of the Broken Range, in cold and hunger, Chap's kin had ignored his pleas for aid. Only the high-pitched whistle of an unknown savior had led him and those in his care to the caves. His kin had done nothing to save them. Even with Magiere at risk among the elves, thesean'Croan, the Fay had remained silent.
Now they showed themselves only to bar Chap's way to Nein'a.
What better way to keep Magiere from the hands of the Enemy than to allow her to die?
Whether in those mountains or among a hostile people, it would simply be her fate and none of the Fay's doing.
How badly his kin wished to keep Leesil from his mother. Would they allow Leesil to die as well, so long as it served some purpose Chap could not remember?
And why could he not recall the answers? Such vital knowledge could not have just slipped from him.
Chap closed his eyes. His spirit screamed like a wail that shook his body.
Betrayers… deceivers… you took this from me!
His own kin.They had cut his memories like a blade severing flesh and bone. They had ripped out pieces of him, tearing away any awareness they did not want him to have.
All in the moment he had chosen to be born.
Chap opened his eyes and cast his gaze about the clearing, looking for something to rend and tear.
He froze at the sight of Wynn clinging to a tree beside Lily.
The sage's olive-toned face was a mask of horror, and streams of tears ran down her cheeks as she stared at him.
Wynn heard the entire exchange. In communion with his kin, even some of Chap's inner words to himself had chattered softly in her head.
He was supposed to be one of them-a Fay.
Through him, Wynn had come to believe that whatever they truly were, they worked for a worthy purpose. Chap had been sent to save Magiere-and Leesil as well, in some way.
But the Fay had used Chap. They had left him and all those with him to die. Even her, as she dangled over that gorge, half frozen in a blizzard, while the others tried to save her.
The wind died instantly into chilling silence.
Chap's voice rose like a shout in Wynn's thoughts.
Run!
Chap bolted straight at Wynn as the air churned with growing force.
She had been listening-a mortal eavesdropping upon the Fay.
Mulch and twigs swept up to join leaves torn from above in a growing, spinning circle of wind. Debris pelted Chap from all sides, obscuring his sight. He fought to stay on his feet and keep Wynn and Lily in sight.
She is an innocent!
No answer came.
Lily snatched the leg of Wynn's breeches and pulled on the sage. Wynn toppled to the ground, shielding her face as sheared-off branches battered against her.
Chap heard an aching creak of wood and the tearing of earth. Within the crackle of snapping branches, his kin shouted in outrage.
Abomination!
Earth around its trunk heaved upward. Deep roots tore free, slinging sod and mulch in the air. The birch tipped and arced downward, ripping through the branches of other trees as it fell directly toward Wynn.
As Chap tried to run toward her, something dark and long whipped at him in the corner of his vision. He swerved and ducked.
Wynn grabbed Lily's neck and scrambled with kicking legs. Dog and sage rolled away in a tangle as the birch's trunk slammed to the earth. The impact sent a shudder through the ground. Lily yelped and Wynn cried out as both vanished beneath the tree's leaves and flailing limbs.
He charged for the downed tree with the wind's roar filling his ears.
Something heavy and hard lashed the whole side of his body. The world flashed in a painful white… and then black.
Chap's vision cleared, and he lay slumped on the ground. Leaves, stripped from the birch's branches in the wind, churned in a vortex that filled the clearing.
Around the downed tree's base, dark forms writhed.
Its roots moved. Wide and sluggish where they joined the huge knot at the tree's trunk, their tapering bulk bent and curled like earth-stained serpents upon the ground. Two wormed their way along the trunk and into the bulk to the birch's leaves.
Chap had so fully focused on the toppling birch that he had not seen its roots come alive. One of them must have struck him down. He squirmed on the ground, trying to get up.
Wynn screamed from somewhere beneath the birch's remaining leaves.
Wynn heard Lily struggling to escape, but she could not see the dog among the cloud of leaves and branches pinning her to the ground. She tried to roll off her back and crawl out.
Her left leg snapped straight, and her back flattened against the ground.
Something curled and twisted up Wynn's leg, and her breath began to race. It crushed inward around her calf. Wynn screamed out in pain under its grinding pressure.
Leaves dangling against her face turned blue-white as her mantic sight surged up.
Lily's howl pierced Wynn's ears, and a chorus of leaf-wings roared in her skull.
Abomination! Sick thing that spies on us. Your taint rises in your flesh.
