Leaf and Branch (New Druids Series Vol 1 & 2)

by Donald D. Allan

  "Ha! It serves you right! You are always smacking me! Turnabout is fair!"

  Nadine glared at me. Her face twisted from anger to something else and then back again. She leaned forward as if to join me and then stomped off into the house.

  I looked at Dog and Dog looked at me. "She looks beautiful when she is angry," I said.

  I smiled after her and realised something. She wasn't moving like an old woman anymore. She was more like someone middle-aged, or younger. I sensed her through the bond. Her heart was hammering and she was confused. Happy and afraid at the same time. I didn't understand her emotions or what her problem was. It had to be the reminder of the draoi and powers she lacked, I thought. Our bond was still blue but the white swirled and stormed. I examined her and looked at Dog as if to seek answers, but Dog just lowered his head to his paws and went back to sleep.

  I examined Nadine through the bond and could see she didn't just look younger. She was younger. Her arthritis was gone, for one. Her spine was straight, for another. I could see her heart was one of a much younger woman. Her muscles had gained strength and mass. Her hair was growing in red and thick at the roots and would soon replace the grey. Her wrinkles remained but it seemed like a false wrapping now. Gaea was making her younger on the inside and hiding it behind the mask of an old woman. Whatever for? I wondered and sat back and stared at Dog for a little while, thinking furiously.

  A couple of weeks later, Nadine woke me up from my bedroll. To give her more privacy and distance from me I had placed it as far from her as possible across the house. It wasn't only out of respect for her privacy. It was also because she snored worse than Daukyns and Dog combined. I blinked up at her and could see she was on her knees beside me holding a steaming cup of tea in her hands. She smiled down at me and held it out. She was backlit by the morning sun and her hair caught the rays and gleamed, framing her face in reddish light. She never looked more beautiful. Her wrinkles looked out of place with eyes shining bright with youth and health. Her eyes were a lovely bright green and I held her gaze for a moment. This is how I want to wake up every morning, I thought. She blushed at my attention and put the mug down beside me and hurried away.

  "Get up," she said as she retreated. "Time for school, young man."

  "Yes, old woman," I said and laughed at her growl. She knows now, I felt through the bond. She wasn't sure before but now she is. She is getting younger. But something is still bothering her. Perhaps it is the return of her youth? Would that upset someone? It shouldn't. She should be overjoyed. How many people get a second life?

  I rose and sipped my tea before heading outside to the jacks to relieve myself. Dog was already up and hunting and I could sense his joy as he chased down seagulls flocking by the nearby pond. As I finished my business I recalled what Nadine had just said. School? What does that mean? I thought. Daukyns had given me a kind of schooling. Hopefully, she meant the same thing. Thoughts of Daukyns reminded me of Reeve Comlin and I thought of my need to warn him of the Church.

  A week ago I had managed to find a barge captain down by the river who promised me he would get a letter delivered to Reeve Comlin. His barge only went as far as Lakeside, but he said he knew another captain there he could trust. Their schedules ensured he would be able to hand the letter over. I used my power to determine he was trustworthy and we agreed on four groats to deliver the message He seemed pleased with the amount. Two were for him and two for the next captain who would deliver it to Jaipers. I sat on the dock and, after several attempts, I managed to write out a message to Reeve Comlin. In it I warned him of the threat the Church presented and let him know the garrison likely had spies. I said nothing else and chose not to tell him of the attack or the draoi. I concluded by telling him I was safe, would stop by the farm, and hoped he was well. It would have to be enough. I handed it to the captain and he sealed the letter with his own seal. He then took my money, shook hands and left. It would be weeks before the letter would arrive. I felt better knowing the Reeve would be warned.

  I left the jacks and entered the home to find Nadine over at her worktable. She had cleared it and had a few objects and the manuscript on it. I sipped my cooling tea and walked over. She was reading from the book and making notes beside it. I tried to read what she was writing before she covered it and scowled at me. "No! This is for me. You sit there and wait." She pointed at the kitchen chair she had moved up to sit opposite her at the worktable.

  I sat down and finished my tea while she completed her notes. I had no idea what to expect. I could sense Nadine was excited. I watched Dog through the bond and could sense he seemed bored now. The seagulls had fled and he was standing beside the pond and wondering what to do next. I sent him an image of rabbits falling to his massive jaws and he leaped in the direction of the rabbit burrows by the woods. I felt a sense of thanks and I opened my mouth in surprise. That was interesting.

  "Nadine, I..."

  "Shush," She commanded, interrupting me. I shot her a withering look, which she ignored. I was bored, so I watched Dog for a while and sent him different images such as meat on the stove, milk in a bowl, and the like. All in an attempt to get something out of him. What I got was a sense of him getting angry at me and I stopped. Sorry, I sent. Nothing came back. I finished my tea and looked around the home, which now felt so safe and warm to me. Above, the rafters groaned with the weight of all the herbs I had harvested over the month.

  Recently, Nadine had gone to a woman friend of hers. After a brief discussion, she agreed to sell the herbs in the market for a small but fair cut of the profit. Nadine loved all the coin she was collecting. I was stunned at the amount she earned. The market here in Jergen was much more profitable than in Jaipers.

  Despite the work in the garden and in the home, I was bored. The lessons with Nadine were fun but, without magyc of her own, they were limited. I was about to rise to make more tea when she cleared her throat. I turned my full attention to her.

  "Alright," said Nadine a moment later. "This will seem silly to you at first but you have to bear with me. You know nothing and yet can do more than you should be able to. That we know. Normally a Stoc would guide a Craobh and a Craobh would guide a Duilleog. But, young man, it appears you have reached Craobh all by yourself and now I have to try to fix that. I need to teach you Duilleog magic and guess what? I have no powers to use to help that process. Normally the bond is used to teach the new draoi. So words will have to do. Understand?"

  "Fix it? What do you mean?"

  "Well, there are ways of using the power. You have picked up bad habits working the power by yourself. I need to correct those bad habits."

  "Bad habits? Like what?"

  "Well, the way you used to blast your power and let your aura glow out into visible light. Or, when you were chased by those guards. There was a lot you could have done. The nature around you can be asked to help. They can slow down the approach of others. You can ask animals to come to the attack in your defence. You did none of that. You simply ran."

  I glared at her. What she was describing were not my bad habits, it was my fear.

  "Will, I am not criticizing you! Gaea, forbid! I am trying to educate you. You will need to learn to accept criticism." I grinned at her in response and she smacked me. "You! Be serious!"

  "Sorry, Nadine. I know, I'm ready to learn. Teach me, master."

  "Better. Okay. We start with basics. There are three powers a draoi can use. One is Vision. The second is Sense. The last is Influence. They are pretty straightforward but how you use each can be complicated and there are many different strengths and uses of each. In simple terms, Vision is what you did in Jaipers that first time. It is the first power that draoi manifest once they are opened to Gaea's powers. When you use Vision you are seeing the world in a different way. Some draoi think they are seeing through things. That is not possible, the Word teaches that truth, the human eye cannot see through solid objects unless they are transparent. So, when you use Vision you are seeing in different s
pectrums. People see the colours that make up visible light but that is not the limit to what can be seen with magyc. We know from the ancient teachings that light as we know it is a broad spectrum and the colours we see are but a minuscule amount of what is out there. Vision lets you see those other spectrums. Understand?"

  I nodded once. I was starting to feel like I was back with Daukyns in Jaipers. I steeled myself for a long lecture. At least this one is interesting.

  "Sense," she continued. "Is almost the same as Vision and many young Duilleogs confuse the two. I heard the draoi teachers often explain Sense in this way: 'Sense is seeing with your emotions. You see how another person feels, or an animal, or a plant. You sense all that is Gaea and it is because you and all life are Gaea. You are sensing a distant part of yourself.' Does that make any sense to you, Will?"

  I laughed at her unintentional pun. She frowned at me. I stopped laughing and nodded. She flashed me a quick smile and I laughed again. She was getting to be fun. Our bond flashed in my sight blue and white and pulsing.

  "The last is Influence. This is the power that few draoi can use to its fullest potential. With influence, you effect all life around you. You manipulate matter. You can change it. What you can never do is harm other life through influence. It reflects back on you and you harm yourself. It is a defence mechanism of Gaea herself. You can no more rip off your own finger, do you see?"

  "No. That one I don't. I might not be able to rip my own finger off, but you could. That is the same thing if everything is Gaea."

  Nadine smiled. "Well, yes. Except that, it is a matter of your consciousness. You cannot harm yourself because you know you are harming yourself. Your desire for self-preservation stops that. One of Gaea's gifts is that all life is separate and distinct from one another. And that this life can self-replicate but can also destroy. But the life is bound within itself and can be seen as distinct and individual. When draoi use influence they cross that boundary."

  "What if someone had no self-preservation? What would happen then?"

  Nadine looked at me like I had two heads. "What a silly notion. Everyone has self-preservation."

  "What if you chose to sacrifice yourself for a greater belief, or someone else?"

  Nadine pursed her lips. "I don't think Gaea would allow that, Will. You harm life and as a draoi, you are harming yourself. Do you see?"

  I thought I did. I had a bad experience before and decided now was the right time to tell her. "Umm, yes. I do, I suppose. I haven't told you something. What I did in Jaipers."

  "What happened?"

  "The day after I rubbed the coin and woke my powers, you remember me telling you that?" Nadine nodded and I continued. "The Reeve in Jaipers took me to see a sick woman. I was using vision at the time but I didn't know it by name. I looked into her and found she was infested with a tiny organism. They were everywhere in her. Then I saw that this thing had spread throughout most of the town. I tracked it to the well in town. Infected rats had contaminated the water supply, and it had quickly spread throughout the town. Myself included. I — well, I grew so angry — I reached out and killed every mote in the town. I crushed them. Then I felt like my head exploded in agony and I nearly died. Reeve Comlin was surprised I woke. After that, it took me the better part of a week in the inn to recover. It was horrible."

  Nadine had her mouth covered with a hand and she stared at me in what could only be described as horror. I felt my cheeks redden in shame. "Dear Gaea, what are you? One draoi cannot heal an entire town. The range! It's too large." Nadine shook her head. "You are the last of the draoi. Well, almost the last it seems. Perhaps Gaea has seen fit to grant you more power than she ever had in a draoi before. She must trust you, Will."

  Nadine grew quiet and thought for a moment before she continued. "The pain in your head was the reflection of the harm you caused. You were fortunate that the combined mass of the motes was not much more than a few grains of sand. Scale is everything for Gaea. One life is not worth more than another. The mass of one life, if greater, is worth more than a smaller life mass. Many draoi fought that particular aspect of Gaea. And they could have provided you with many arguments to prove the concept flawed. But it didn't matter in the end, did it? All that mattered was Gaea's opinion and she was pretty clear about it. And they are all gone. None of the draoi lives mattered and they were the holders of the balance."

  I sat in silence and thought of her words. I didn't think them correct. One life, no matter how small, could not mean less just because of size. We treat children reverently and they are smaller than adults. It had to be something more. Something else. I felt I could almost grasp it but it eluded me. I focused on what Nadine was saying.

  "What do you mean by balance?" I remembered Daukyns spoke often of balance. I knew the answer from Daukyns but I wanted to hear Nadine's version from the draoi perspective.

  "Balance. The Word teaches this concept. And it should. The Word was started by the draoi. The first Freamhaigh introduced it to the world and the concept stuck. It was easy for the draoi back then. They had proof God didn't exist. They had Gaea, a living deity. But that's not important. The reason the draoi existed was Gaea created them — well, us. She selected people and gave them powers and told them to restore and maintain the balance. Our lore teaches us long ago humans were too powerful. They were destroying Gaea herself. Poisoning her. But she stopped it, thousands of years ago. She almost wiped the world of all people. But then she changed her mind. People and Gaea, they were the same thing, you see? People just hold more conscious thought than other life on earth. We are more Gaea than a dog for example."

  I looked at Dog who was lying under the table. He was asleep and content. I immediately disagreed with Nadine. All life is equal. From the smallest insect to the largest animal. There could be no balance if life is measured by mass. It made no sense to me. I could see Nadine believed it. She had to. It was all she had ever known. It was her lore and her words. But with no power, she couldn't see the truth. All life has meaning. This couldn't be about balance. It was the wrong word. Balance was unachievable with nature. Wolves ate rabbits. If it was about balance, then a rabbit would eat a wolf. But it didn't work that way. Rabbits found ways to hide from the wolf. They bred at an incredible rate, insuring they survived as a species.

  It must have everything to do with the harmony of life. Co-existing on the earth together, I thought. Not balance, but harmony.

  A loud and pure tone filled the air and Dog leapt up and barked. Nadine looked startled and held her hands to her ears. I felt a presence fill the room and turned to see Gaea standing before me. She was dressed in a long flowing gown made of vines and leaves. Flowers sprouted all over her and painted the gown in a beautiful shimmering mosaic of colours. The smell of fresh dug earth and flowers filled the air and I breathed deep and smiled. Nadine gasped and lowered her hands from her ears. A feeling of peace filled my heart and I could feel pulses of earth power through the soles of my feet. I felt I knew her better than I did myself. I knew she was me and I was her. I felt small but not afraid.

  Gaea smiled at us and took us all in with a slow turn of her head. Her hair was rough and tangled and dirt fell from her to the floor. Her eyes had no whites — just a deep brown colour. Her skin was rough, like bark, but she was beautiful all the same. "Well done, William Arbor." She spoke quietly with no more power or volume than the woman she appeared to be. Her voice awoke a pain in my heart and I struggled to understand the source. "You understand that which eluded the draoi before you, Will. Harmony for all." Nadine turned to look at me with wonder on her face. "Humans destroyed harmony in the past and I will not suffer that pain again. It woke me and I have not slept since. I am still recovering from the damage and parts of me may never fully heal. In time, with the help of humans, I may but for now, you will help me restore this Realm."

  "Restore the Realm?" The question came out of me before I could think. As soon as I voiced it I knew that I had to get answers. I had only just begun
to try and rationalise that there was an entity that was nature. Here she stood before me, and the first thing in my mind was understanding how she could have allowed the Purge. Gaea turned to me with a face that seemed to bear no emotion.

  "Yes, restore the Realm. Here will be the test that will decide what happens next."

  "How could you let them all die?" I said. I heard Nadine suck in her breath but I didn't care. This woman in front of me had allowed my mother to die. If I understood everything, she had required it to happen.

  Gaea's face softened and she nodded ever so slightly. "It's true. I allowed the draoi to be cleansed from the land."

  "Cleansed?" I spat. The word was foul. It implied that my mother was somehow dirty. A felt a tightness in my chest and I clenched my hands to still them. I stared in disbelief at this apparition who stood before me and told me she had allowed my mother to be cleansed. It was just a euphemism for killed. She had been struck down when she most needed Gaea. "You let her die. She was killed doing your work. I was eight years old. Abandoned and alone in the world."

  "She returned to me. As did all the others. In time, you will understand. My time here is limited. I have much for you to do. First, you will gather the draoi and teach them," she said.

  I blinked. Had she just dismissed my entire concern for the lives of the draoi and my mother? How cold was this thing in front of me? I opened my senses to her and cried out. My vision flooded with light and power blinding me. I turned off my senses and blinked. My vision cleared and I found Gaea looking back at me with that same lack of emotion.

  "It has been some time since a draoi opted to examine me with my own power," she said. "Nadine you had best start teaching him soon. Will, we will talk more of choice at a later time, I promise you. Not now. You must teach the new draoi."

  I glared at her. I was far from wanting to give up this discussion. I didn't know how to take this entity in front of me. I felt so drawn to her. I could feel the connection to her and I trusted her. My thoughts fought with my heart. I lowered my head and tried to find peace. I had no idea how to do that. I thought back to a conversation with Daukyns.