Heartwood (Tricksters Game)

by Barbara Campbell

  He shoved back his sleeve. Both arms were crisscrossed with scars; yesterday’s wound still leaked blood through the nettle-cloth bandage. He found a patch of unmarked flesh and drew his dagger across his forearm, allowing his blood to drip upon the base of the standing stone.

  “I give my blood,” he whispered. “I will give my life if you require it. Just give me a sign. Give me the sign I need.”

  Eye fastened upon the groove, he waited. Even after the sun had disappeared behind the cleft in the western hills and the shadows enveloping the lakeshore had deepened from purple to indigo, he stood before the pillar, his mind refusing to accept what his eye had seen.

  The shadow of the western stone had fallen neatly across the groove—exactly as it had at Midwinter. The year was not turning.

  It was impossible. Surely, the gods would not permit the world to die or allow the Oak-Lord to be destroyed.

  “Nay.” He spoke his denial aloud, repeated it again and yet a third time, his fingers flying in the sign to avert evil. That awful presence in the grove might have disrupted the battle, but the Oak’s spirit still lived. Otherwise, the days would be growing shorter. The god must have fled.

  A new thought made him gasp. Could the Oak’s spirit have found refuge in Tinnean’s body? It would explain the strange energy he had touched. And it might mean—merciful Maker, let it be so—that the boy’s spirit was safe in the One Tree.

  He hurried back to the village, leaning heavily on his staff. He must seek confirmation in a vision. Only then would he share his discovery with the Grain-Mother. He would need her help to retrieve Tinnean’s spirit and ease the Oak’s back into the One Tree. He had brought lost spirits back from the Forever Isles, but no Tree-Father—not even Morgath—had ever attempted to exchange spirits between two bodies. If he failed, he could lose them both. Awful enough to lose the boy; to lose the Oak meant the death of the world.

  Buoyed by hope, he paid no attention to the shouting at first. His footsteps slowed as he reached the huts. Flickering torchlight illuminated the crowd. He made out Darak’s tall figure, standing at the doorway of his hut, confronting Jurl. Over the babble of voices, a woman shouted, “It’s his fault!” Others took up the cry. A man shouted, “He has cursed us.”

  Tinnean peeped over Darak’s shoulder. Griane flanked the boy, blocking him from the crowd with her body. Red Dugan’s voice rose above the others to yell, “Go to the house, girl.” Griane shouted back, “I live with Mother Netal. In case the brogac’s made you forget.”

  After that, it all happened very fast. Red Dugan pushing past Jurl. Darak shouldering Tinnean into their hut, pulling Griane away from Red Dugan’s outstretched hands. Another outburst of shouting, punctuated by Red Dugan’s curses. And then a sudden silence.

  “Let me pass.” Struath used his staff to force a way through. “Jurl, Onnig, do you hear me? Dugan, move aside.” He halted abruptly when he saw the naked dagger in Darak’s hand. Darak’s gaze flicked toward him, then immediately returned to Jurl. Struath faced the crowd, summoning his voice of command. “What are you thinking? Tinnean has done nothing to harm you. We are one people. One tribe. We must—”

  “The boy is bewitched.”

  “He has brought down the gods’ anger.”

  “The year is not turning.”

  “And you do nothing, old man!”

  Speechless, he stared at them. Never had any of his tribe dared to speak to him with such disrespect. Never had he seen their familiar faces twisted with such fury and fear. He was still gazing around in shocked silence when he heard Nionik’s voice and discovered the chief making his way through the crowd. Although he had neither Jurl’s brawniness nor Onnig’s silent menace, the brothers stepped back to allow him to pass.

  Nionik bowed to him. “Tree-Father.”

  Struath returned the bow and the formal greeting. “Oak-Chief.” He damned his quavering voice. Now more than ever, he must appear strong.

  Nionik’s gaze shifted to Darak. “Sheathe your dagger.”

  As if emerging from a trance, Darak obeyed. Griane eased aside to let Nionik stand at Darak’s shoulder.

  “People of the Oak.” Without any visible effort, Nionik’s voice carried throughout the silent village. “We have faced plague and famine and, by the grace of the gods, we have survived both. Now we face a new danger—a mystery we cannot fully understand. The year is not turning.”

  Only now did the words register. They knew. They all knew. And why not? Any one of them could have gone to the standing stones. They needed no shaman to interpret that sign.

  “Irdal has taken his boat across the lake to the Holly Tribe,” Nionik said. “I have asked their elders to join our council.”

  Struath heard a few gasps. Only once in his memory had the tribes ever held common council—to judge and condemn Morgath. If Nionik had chosen this course, it could only mean the chief had lost faith in him.

  “Tonight, we will determine what steps to take. On the morrow, we will announce our decision. Until then, there will be no more of these outbursts.” Nionik cast a sharp glance at Jurl before continuing. “Anyone who seeks to thwart the will of the council will be cast out, never to walk the shores of our lake, never to stand before the heart-oak.”

  Struath stepped forward. He must speak. He must reassert his authority. “Go to your homes. Pray for the blessing of our gods. For the guidance of the Oak and the Holly. And for the wisdom of your elders.”

  His heart thudded unevenly when they just stared back at him. Then, slowly, the crowd dispersed. Jurl hawked a gob of phlegm at Darak’s feet. Darak’s breath hissed in, but he stared Jurl down, as unmoving as one of the standing stones. Only when their kinfolk had retreated did he turn to Nionik and bow. “Oak-Chief. I thank you for interceding for my brother.”

  “Save your thanks for after the council meeting, Darak.” Nionik turned to him, his face stern. “Tree-Father, I would speak with you before the elders of the Holly Tribe arrive.”

  He nodded, shamed by the implicit criticism. As Nionik strode away, Struath’s gaze traveled around the village. Two boys darted in and out among the huts, hurling snowballs at each other. Smoke streamed from the vent holes of the roofs. A sheep bleated. A woman called. The boys mounted one last attack before running home. Just like any other winter evening.

  “Struath. Tree-Father. You have my thanks as well.” Stiff-necked as always, Darak couldn’t bring himself to bow, but he did dip his head. On any other day, Struath would have considered it a victory.

  His answering nod was equally curt. Squaring his shoulders, he walked away. Gortin emerged from the shadows. Struath refused his initiate’s outstretched hand, just as he disdained to lean on his staff. Only when he was inside his hut did he permit himself to collapse into Gortin’s arms.

  Once, he would have scoffed at the idea of his people raising their voices against him. But he also would have sworn that the Oak-Lord would always defeat the Holly-Lord at Midwinter, that no power could prevent the year from turning. Now he knew better. He should have taken the chief into his confidence as soon as he detected the strange spirit inside of Tinnean. With Nionik’s help, he could have kept the people’s fear in check while he waited for the gods-given vision to come.

  His fingers crept up his chest to stroke the nettle-cloth pouch that hung around his neck. He tugged open the drawstrings and pulled out the spirit catcher.

  The flickering firelight sent tiny orange flames dancing among the crystal’s facets. It had taken him more than a moon to shape it, meticulously chipping away the quartz with a tiny flint hammerstone. For thirty years he had used it to recapture the fragments of wandering spirits, sundered from their bodies through shock and grief. He slipped the spirit catcher back into its pouch; tonight, it could not help him.

  “Gortin. Build up the fire. Fetch the herbs.”

  “Tree-Father, you are too tired—”

  “I must try. I must.”

  Tonight, the council would decide Tinnean’s
fate. He must summon Brana again and hope that this time, his spirit guide would answer.

  Chapter 7

  DARAK HELD OUT Tinnean’s tunic. “Take off that robe and put these on.” He told himself that Tinnean could move more freely in tunic and breeches, but he knew the real reason he wanted his brother to discard it.

  He shoved the pouch of meal into his hunting sack and examined the supplies he had tossed onto the tanned hide: five suetcakes, some strips of dried venison, and the pheasant he had smoked the day before. He gathered the hide together and tied it with sinew before thrusting it into his hunting sack.

  He had made up his mind during his silent supper with Tinnean. If it had been his tribe alone, he might have risked waiting. With the Holly elders sitting in judgment too, the odds against Tinnean were too great.

  Even with careful rationing, the meat would last only two or three days. After that, they could live on the barley meal and suetcakes until he made a kill. With or without the gods’ permission, he would have to hunt.

  He added one of the stone bowls for cooking porridge. The coiled braid of nettle rope. Three snares. Extra arrowheads and sinew. His sling. He snatched up a handful of fishhooks, wincing as the sharpened bone stuck him. He sucked his bleeding thumb, then grabbed his small net and the twisted strands of deer gut he used as fishing line.

  Only two fire bundles. No time to make more. He’d have to use his firestick the first night. Then he could insert a clump of burning cinders into the bundle and transport fire to their next camp.

  “Roll the spare clothes in the skins.” When Tinnean just stared at him, Darak showed him what to do. Muttering a curse, he threw the discarded robe onto the pile; the woolen garment would provide added warmth during the long nights.

  He had never been farther east than the sacred grove or farther west than the mouth of the river and then only at the Gatherings. But tonight, he must steal a coracle. Sail up the lake. Find someplace isolated. Someplace Tinnean would be safe.

  He opened his small belt pouch to inspect his supply of flints, tinder, and straw. He added a handful of shredded bark for making fire bundles, then yanked the drawstrings tight.

  Perhaps it would be better to sail down the lake. Follow the traders’ route south and lose themselves in one of the fishing settlements that dotted the coastline. Then he remembered the autumn Gathering and his mouth twisted in a grimace.

  If one man had told the tale, he might have discounted it, but the leaders of all the coastal tribes offered the same accounts. The enormous wooden boats that stretched ten or twelve times a man’s height. The spar of wood that rose like a dead tree from the body of the boat and the giant woven cloth attached to it that grew big-bellied when the wind filled it. The black eye silhouetted on a circle of red that marked each of the wind cloths. The long paddles on either side that drove the boats right into their protected coves. And the blood-chilling screams that tore the sleeping villagers from their slumbers to confront dozens of men armed with long, curving daggers who stole their livestock and their children, killing any who opposed them, before retreating to their boats and vanishing into the dawn mists.

  Even if the stories were exaggerated, he couldn’t risk their lives by venturing south. And surely winter lay even heavier on the settlements to the north where strangers would be turned away for lack of food and shelter. Somehow, they would have to manage alone.

  “There’s a shawl under my skins.” He examined the arrows in his quiver. Reknotted the sinew on one to secure the flint to the shaft. Shot a quick glance at Tinnean and found him rubbing his cheek against the shawl.

  Maili had done the same thing when Krali had given it to her. A wedding gift from the eldest woman of her family and the village’s weaver. Soft as a cloud, Maili had said. And the lambswool the same smoky blue of her eyes.

  “Roll the wolfskins in it.”

  “Soft.”

  “Aye. Leave two ends free to tie around you.”

  “Yours?”

  “Nay.”

  “Griane’s?”

  “Nay!” He took a deep breath. “Maili’s.”

  Six moons since he’d spoken her name.

  Tinnean cocked his head. “Maili?”

  Darak looked away, his mouth twisting. Tinnean had known Maili all his life. He had eaten the food she’d cooked, slept under the same roof, teased her about the way her curly hair always escaped from her braid.

  “We’ve no time for this.” He snatched the shawl away from Tinnean, spread it on the rushes, and laid the rolled wolfskins on it. “Put your mantle on.”

  “We go?”

  “Aye. Hold out your arms.” He tied the ends of Maili’s shawl at Tinnean’s shoulder and adjusted the bundle so that it rested snugly against his back.

  “Where?”

  Darak settled his quiver on his back. “Away.”

  “Where?”

  He slung his hunting sack across his body, shoved his ax in his belt, and picked up his bow. The sack bumped against the ax, the bow bumped against both. He shifted the ax, frowning. Now it bumped against his dagger.

  “Damn.”

  The ancient legends never bothered to describe how the great heroes dealt with these kinds of problems. It was all very well to hear about slaying monsters and crossing the rainbow bridge into the silver branches of the World Tree, but it would have been nice to glean something useful to an ordinary man.

  He hefted his spear and took a last look around the hut. The place where his mam had birthed him, where he’d brought his wife, where both had died, and his father and little Milia, all those years ago. His sister would have been seventeen at Midwinter.

  When he spied the turtle shells, he added them to the sack. What else was he forgetting? He hesitated when he saw Tinnean’s flute. They didn’t need it. His sack was already bulging. Still, he snatched it up. He hesitated even longer when he saw the small pouch shoved into a crevice in the wall.

  He had gathered the charms as a boy: the pointed tine of the stag’s antler; the feather of the golden eagle; the fire-blackened twig in the jagged shape of a lightning bolt; the scaly tail of the salmon. Earth, air, fire, water. He’d worn the bag around his neck day and night until the morning he had laid his mam and Maili in the Death Hut.

  Cursing, he yanked the bag free and slipped the leather thongs over his head. His fingers crept up to stroke the soft doeskin. In spite of all that had happened, the touch comforted him.

  He looked up to find Tinnean watching him, a hesitant smile on his face. A little ashamed to be caught clutching his bag of charms, Darak dropped his hand and nodded toward the doorway. Even if the council decided in Tinnean’s favor, this act of defiance would make them exiles. They would never see their village again, never stand with the others before the heart-oak, never watch Bel perch for a heartbeat atop Eagles Mount before impaling himself upon the mountain’s peak to die and be reborn the next dawn in the eastern forest. They would be alone—without home, without kin—from this night on.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bearskin move. Dropping his spear, he thrust Tinnean behind him, ripped his dagger from its sheath, and fell into a defensive crouch.

  Yeorna’s eyes widened at the sight of his dagger. Darak sheathed it as Struath bent low to enter. He forced himself to offer the formal words of greeting. “You are welcome in my home.”

  “Your welcome warms us on this winter’s night,” the Grain-Mother replied.

  Oddly, both Yeorna and Struath offered deep bows to Tinnean. His brother studied them a moment before mimicking the greeting. Darak gestured to the fire pit. “Would you sit?”

  The stiff formalities helped him control the fear twisting his guts. There had never been a casting-out in his lifetime, but he had heard the stories told by the Memory-Keeper: the evildoer stripped naked in the center of the village, proclaimed dead by the Tree-Father, and then driven from the village with rocks and dung, his face never seen again, his name never spoken.

  He strug
gled to keep his voice even. “When will you perform the casting-out?”

  “It is not a casting-out,” Yeorna said.

  With her words, fear changed to terror. Every child learned the story of the wicked shaman Morgath. It was a tale whispered around fire pits, warning of the fate that awaited those who subverted nature’s order. And now the council had proclaimed the same fate for his brother.

  Tinnean would be bent backward over the roots of the heart-oak. Tinnean’s still-beating heart would be cut out of his chest. Tinnean’s dripping blood would be sprinkled around the glade. Tinnean’s body would be hung from the oak’s lowest branch. Tinnean’s flesh would be devoured by animals. Tinnean’s bones would lie in a discarded heap, never to be gathered by his family, never to lie in the tribal cairn.

  “You cannot do this.”

  “Darak …”

  “I’ll not stand by while you sacrifice—”

  “Darak!” Struath’s voice overrode Yeorna’s protestations. “That is not the council’s decision.”

  Relief left him weak. He had to clear his throat twice before he trusted his voice. “What then?”

  “No demon possesses Tinnean, but there is another spirit inside him. I’ve known that for some time, but until today—”

  Darak rose out of his crouch, only to be stopped by Yeorna. “Please, Darak. Listen.”

  He subsided, silently cursing Struath. Each day since they’d brought Tinnean home, he had asked—begged—for answers. And the shaman had withheld them.

  “Today I had a vision. I now understand what happened in the grove and why the year is not turning. The spirit of the Oak fled the One Tree—and took refuge in your brother’s body.”

  As one, they looked at Tinnean. His brother’s puzzled expression gave way to a fierce intensity, as if he understood that something important was happening. Darak touched his arm and Tinnean started, wariness transforming his face into that of a stranger again.