Tanequil

by Terry Brooks

  She cringed at his use of the word us, at the implication that he was somehow a part of the decision-making process, when in fact he was little more than another obstacle. She glanced away to hide her disgust, then turned and walked to the window. She stood there for a moment, thinking.

  “What do you intend to do?” he asked, rising and coming over to put his hands on her shoulders.

  She felt the strength of those hands as they gripped her. They were possessive and commanding as they turned her about to face him. They suggested in no uncertain terms that he was the one in control. She smiled agreeably as he leaned down and kissed her mouth. She kissed him back, waited for the kiss to end, then broke away.

  “I intend to drink my morning cup of tea before speaking with those in the order who will keep an eye on things in our absence.”

  He stared after her. “Our absence? Are we going somewhere?”

  “To confront Sen Dunsidan, of course.”

  She had told him nothing of her plans to visit Arishaig before this. The reason was simple. She had not intended for him to go. She still didn’t, but it was best to let him think she did.

  “To confront him? In his own home, his own city, surrounded by his own people?” Gerand Cera considered the prospect. “A bold course of action, Shadea. How safe can we expect to be?”

  She shrugged, pouring tea into cups, slipping into his the tiny pill she had been saving for that moment and watching it dissolve instantly. “We are Druids, Gerand. We can’t afford to worry about being safe. We can’t afford to be seen to be afraid.”

  She handed him his tea, stood in front of him as she sipped from her own, and watched with satisfaction as he drank.

  “Sit with me on the bed.” She took his arm and moved over. She pulled him down next to her. “Perhaps we needn’t go down right away. The tea is making me warm all over. I need to find a way to cool off.”

  She smiled and sipped again. “Come, Gerand. Finish your tea. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  He drank it in a single gulp and reached for her. His appetites were so pathetic, so predictable. She eased away playfully. He was still grinning when the drug took effect. An abrupt change came over his hatchet features. His face went slack and empty, and he lurched forward, falling onto his side.

  That was quick, she thought. She rose and looked down at him, at the way his eyes rolled frantically from side to side as he tried to understand what was happening to him. She eased a pillow under his head, then reached for his legs and lifted them onto the bed so that he was lying stretched out along its length.

  “Comfortable, Gerand? Much better to rest while this is happening.” Knowing he could no longer reach for her, could no longer move at all for that matter, she bent over him. His lungs and his heart still worked, but not very efficiently. He barely had the strength of a baby.

  “I’ve given you a drug,” she explained, sitting next to him. “It saps the strength from your muscles and leaves you paralyzed. It only lasts a little while. There is no trace of its presence afterwards. Unlike poison, for example, which I considered using but decided against. After all, I can’t afford to be seen as a murderess.”

  She leaned close. “You see what is to happen, I expect. Your eyes tell me you know. So now you no longer love me. Now, you despise me. Love is like that. It only lasts for as long as both parties require it, and then it becomes a burden, which is one reason I do not permit myself to love anyone too much. You should have learned that lesson a long time ago. I am surprised you didn’t. Now you must learn it the hard way.”

  He was staring fixedly at her, and she read the hatred in his eyes. In contrast, his face was empty of expression, and it seemed as if the eyes must belong to someone else. Yet the eyes were really all that was left of him. Everything else had been stripped away by the drug.

  She leaned down and kissed him lightly on the forehead. “Try not to think too harshly of me, Gerand. You would have done the same, if you had paid closer attention to how I looked at you.”

  Then she took the pillow from under his head, placed it firmly over his face, and pressed down on it with all of her considerable strength until he stopped breathing.

  When the cell door closed and the locking bolts were thrown, Bek Ohmsford was engulfed in blackness. He sat down, waiting for his eyes to adjust, and after a time they did. A sliver of light crept under the door and through the seams on the latch side, permitting him just enough illumination to find his way around. The cell was tiny, and it didn’t take him long to explore it. He found nothing that would help. The walls, floor, and ceiling were hewn from bedrock, and the only exit was through the barred door. The room contained only the bed, straw, and bucket he had seen upon being brought in. There were no implements that might be used for tunneling or prying. There were no fissures or seams on which to employ such a tool in any event. And there was nothing he could use for a weapon.

  He sat on the bed and thought about his situation for a long time. If Shadea was to be believed—and he had no reason to assume she wasn’t—there was a guard stationed on the other side of the door, watching for any attempt at escape. Down the hall and up the stairs, there would be others. A relay was in place to send word faster than he could run, should he attempt to break free. He couldn’t know all the particulars, but he had to assume the guards had a form of communication that would allow them to know if one or more of their number had been overpowered.

  Time passed, and eventually the door opened far enough to permit a Gnome Hunter to slide a tray of food inside before the locks were thrown anew. Accustomed by then to the dark, Bek was blinded by the sudden glare of torchlight and barely caught a glimpse of what was happening before the door was closed again. He took that into account as he continued to make his plans, sitting on the floor of his cell and eating his meal. The food, he found, was reasonable; apparently, Shadea didn’t intend to do away with him through starvation. But he hadn’t changed his mind that she intended to do away with him in some manner.

  He waited through three more meals, measuring the time it took the Gnome to pull back the lock bolt, open the cell door, slide the food tray inside, close the door, and throw the bolt again. It was clear to him that any escape would have to come then. It would not be possible to escape if he had to break down or lever open the door. The noise such an effort would require, even if time and opportunity allowed for it, would alert the Gnome Hunters immediately, and any chance of surprise would be lost.

  Even then, once he was through, what would he find on the other side? At least one Gnome Hunter, but how many more would be keeping him company? If he were Shadea, he would insist on at least two, possibly more, being present anytime the cell door was opened. That would eliminate the chance that he could successfully overpower one guard without alerting the others.

  He began positioning himself so that he could see something of the hallway outside when the cell door was cracked, and through two further meals, he tried to catch a glimpse of what was out there. But it was impossible to see more than a little of what lay beyond, never enough to be certain. He did catch sight of movement once, a shadow thrown by torchlight that indicated the presence of another man. But it was clear that he would have to make his break into the hallway without knowing how many Gnomes he would find.

  How could he do that and still make certain they could not sound the alarm?

  He puzzled it through with an increasing sense of desperation; he needed to find a solution quickly, because time was slipping away and with it his chances of freeing Rue and warning Penderrin. In spite of what Shadea had learned of Taupo Rough, he had to assume that his son was still free and his exact whereabouts still undiscovered. But that could change in a hurry.

  He decided in the end that what he must do was use the wishsong in a blanket assault, stunning everyone within hearing distance and giving him a chance to get up the steps to confront whomever he had missed. It was a long shot at best, one he did not much care to take. But sitting in his cell a
nd waiting for the inevitable was madness. He hated putting Rue at risk, but he knew that she would want him to if it meant giving them a chance, however slim, of reaching Pen.

  He decided to try for one more look, using the next feeding as a trial run for determining exactly where he should stand to get through the door to the guards. He waited patiently, using his time to run repeated rehearsals of what he would do, working and reworking his timing, his movements, everything that would be required of him.

  When the door finally opened, he was standing just to the open side, watching the movements of the Gnome Hunter as he knelt to slide the food tray inside, counting the seconds from the time the door opened until it closed again. It took twelve seconds. He would have to act quickly. He would have to summon the wishsong and hold it within himself until the locks were thrown. Then he would have to sprint through the door, directing the magic down the hallway as he emerged, a quick and certain strike.

  He sat in the darkness and thought about how little chance he had of making this plan work. wasn’t there a better one? wasn’t there something else he could do?

  He was just finishing his meal when a piece of paper was slid under the door. He stared at it for a moment, then reached down to retrieve it. Bent close to the bottom of the door, where the thin light gave just enough illumination to allow him to make out the words, he read:

  HELP IS COMING.

  Bek recognized the writing immediately. It was the same hand that had penned the note he and Rue had received on their arrival at Paranor, the one that had warned them not to trust anyone. He had never discovered the identity of the writer, and in truth, he had forgotten all about the note until that moment.

  Lying on the floor next to the crack beneath the cell door, he read it again. Could he believe it? Could he trust that the writer would be able to find a way to free him? How long could he afford to wait to find out?

  He stared blindly into the darkness of his prison, searching for the answers.

  TWENTY-SIX

  He heard the voices first, soft and insistent, joined as one, humming and then singing, the words indecipherable, but their sound sharp and clear and compelling.

  –Penderrin– she whispered from out of the confluence. –I’ve come back–

  But it wasn’t her voice, and he knew that when he looked, it wouldn’t be her. It wouldn’t be anybody at all.

  –I said I would come back. I promised, didn’t I–

  He lay where he had fallen asleep near dawn, exhausted from searching for her after realizing where she might be and what she might have done. Frantic with worry, he had torn through the ancient forest like a madman, plunging through the dark trunks and layered shadows, calling her name until he was too tired to continue. Then, heartsick and drained of hope, he had collapsed. It couldn’t be true, he kept telling himself. His suspicions were unfounded and fueled by his weariness and the shock of losing his fingers. It was all a lie of the mind, born of his misinterpretation of the tanequil’s words, of the fears raised by the tree’s dark reminder that its gift of the darkwand required a like gift from him.

  Of the body. Of the heart.

  –Penderrin, wake up. Open your eyes–

  But he kept his eyes closed, wrapped in the comforting darkness that not seeing her afforded, unwilling to let that last shred of hope fall away. He moved his damaged hand beneath him, feeling with his good fingers for the ones that were missing, finding the stumps healed over and the pain gone. It wasn’t so bad, he supposed, losing parts of two fingers. Not for what he had been given in turn. Not for what it meant to his efforts at finding his aunt. Not for what it meant to the future of the Four Lands. It wasn’t so bad.

  But losing Cinnaminson was.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked finally, his voice so soft that he could barely hear his own words.

  Silence greeted his query, a long and empty sweep of time in which the voices grew quiet and the sounds of the forest slowly filled the void their departure created.

  “Why, Cinnaminson?”

  Still no answer. Suddenly fearful that he had lost her completely, he lifted his head and looked around. He was alone, sprawled on the grassy patch on which he had fallen asleep the night before, the darkwand resting on the ground beside him, its glossy length shimmering, its carved runes dark and mysterious.

  “Cinnaminson?” he called.

  –It was a chance for me to be something I couldn’t otherwise be– She spoke to him from out of the air. –I am free from my body, Pen. Free from my blindness. Free in a way I could never be otherwise. I can fly everywhere. I can see what I could never see before. Not in the way I do now. I am not alone anymore. I have found a family. I have sisters. I have a mother and father–

  He didn’t know what to say. She sounded so happy, but her happiness made him feel miserable. He hated himself for his reaction, but he couldn’t find a way to change it.

  “It was your choice to do this?” he demanded, his words sounding woeful and plaintive, even to him.

  –Of course, Penderrin. Did you think I was forced to become one of them? It was my choice to shed my body–

  “But you knew I wouldn’t be given the tanequil’s branch any other way, didn’t you?”

  –I knew it was the right thing to do. Just as you did, when you agreed to come here to find the tree and to seek help in freeing your aunt–

  “But you knew,” he persisted, desperate to wring from her one small concession. “You knew that becoming an aeriad would help me. You knew that giving yourself to the tanequil was what it would take for the tanequil to give me its limb.”

  Her hesitation was momentary. –I knew–

  She was moving all around him, a part of the ether, a disembodied voice buttressed by the soft singing and humming of her sister aeriads, her new family, her new life. He tried to see her in the sound of her voice, but he could not quite manage it. His memory of her was strong, but his efforts to form a picture from her voice alone were insufficient. He didn’t want her back in still life; he wanted her back as a living, breathing human being, and the images he managed to conjure failed to capture her that way.

  He sank back wearily. “When did you decide to do this?” His voice broke as despair threatened to overwhelm him. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

  The singing rose and fell like a wave of emotion born on a shift in the wind. –What would I have said to you? That I love you so much that I cannot imagine life without you, but that I am old enough to understand that loving someone that much isn’t always the only measuring stick for making a life with them? That choosing love should never be selfish–

  “If you loved me that much . . .”

  –I love you that much, Penderrin. Nothing has changed. I love you still. But you were sent here for another reason, one too important to sacrifice for anything—even for me. I know this. I knew it from the moment that I heard the aeriads speaking to me. They were telling me what was needed—not directly, not in so many words, but in the way they sang to me, in the sound of their voices. I knew–

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I can do this without you. I can’t even think straight. I can barely move.”

  Matched by the voices of her sisters, soothing as a breeze on a hot summer day, her voice trilled with soft laughter. –Oh, Pen, it will pass! You will go on to do what you were sent to do! You will find your aunt and bring her home again. I am already a memory, already fading away–

  He stared into space, into the place from where she spoke to him, trying to make himself accept what she was telling him, and failing.

  The voices sighed and hummed and sighed some more. –Do not be sad, Penderrin– she whispered. –I am not sad. I am happy. You can hear it in my voice, can’t you? I made a choice. The aeriads asked me to join them, to help you and myself. While you slept, I went with them from the surface of the earth to the Downbelow. From the sunlight and air world of Father Tanequil to the darkness and earth world of
Mother Tanequil. She roots deep, Pen, to provide for her children, to give them life, to allow them the freedom she can never have. I saw the truth of what she is. Of what they both are. Joined as one—Father, the limbs; Mother, the roots. One lives aboveground, but the other must forever live below. She gets lonely. She needs company. I was a gift to her from Father Tanequil. But it was what I wanted. Perhaps he knew that when he sent me to her. Perhaps he knows us both better than we know ourselves. They are very old spirits, Pen. They were here when the world was born, when the Word was still young and the Faerie creatures newly made. We are children in their eyes–

  “We are Men!” he snapped. “And they don’t know what’s right for us! They don’t know anything about us because they aren’t like us! Don’t you see? We were manipulated! We were tricked!”

  A long silence punctuated his angry words. –No, Pen. We did what we thought was best. Both of us. I don’t regret it. I won’t. We have the lives we have chosen, whether fate or the tanequil or something larger pushed us to that choice–

  He took a long slow breath to calm himself. She was wrong; he knew she was wrong. But there was nothing he could do about it. It was over and done with. He would have to live with it, although he couldn’t imagine how he would ever do that.

  “Did it hurt at all?” he asked quietly. “Your transformation? Was there any pain?”

  –None, Pen–

  “But what of your body? Did it just . . . ?”

  He couldn’t finish the thought, unable to bear the image it conjured—an image of her turning to dust, disintegrating.

  Laughter greeted his failure, gentle and soothing. –Kept safe and unchanging in her arms, I sleep with Mother Tanequil, Pen, down within the earth, in the darkness and quiet, where she takes root. She nourishes me, so that I can live. If I were to die, I would cease to exist, even as an aeriad–

  She is down in the ravine, he thought suddenly. He was finally beginning to understand. The tanequil was both male and female, mother and father to the aeriads, a trunk joining limbs at one end to roots at the other. Cinnaminson was in the keeping of the latter, down in the shadowy depths they had crossed over on the bridge. Down where something huge had stirred awake on their passing.