“I blamed you for their suffering. And for what happened to my brother. Maker help me, I cannot forgive what you did to my folk and ’twould be a lie if I pretended otherwise. So punish me. Not Tinnean. Bring him back. I . . I beg you.”
He rose. Whatever sign the gods sent, he would meet it on his feet like a man.
Please don’t let my punishment be to lose him.
He heard a gasp behind him and spun around, automatically reaching for his dagger.
A wolf stood at the edge of the trees. A huge beast, twice the size of any he’d killed. Impossible that it could have crept up on him. Years of hunting had taught him to stay alert at all times. Even when the awful grief had seized him, one part of him had remained attuned to the forest. Briefly, he wondered if his vision mate had somehow materialized, but he dismissed the idea when the animal stepped into Gheala’s light; this wolf was silver, not black.
Never taking his eyes off the beast, he slowly bent and retrieved his bow, right hand already reaching over his shoulder. As he straightened, he nocked the arrow in his bowstring. Even in the predawn gloom, he could see Yeorna’s fingers flying. Gortin was trying to pull Struath behind him, but the shaman just stared at the wolf, transfixed.
The wolf shambled toward the others, weaving like Crel’s dog when it had the water sickness last summer. It came to a halt before Struath. Edging left, Darak drew the bowstring back, but the wolf just stood there, swaying slightly with the effort to keep its footing.
“Struath?” He kept his voice soft, but the animal’s ears pricked up. “Move right. Now.”
The wolf crouched. Struath cried out and pushed Tinnean into the brush. Darak loosed the arrow as the wolf leaped. The animal yelped and spun toward him. For a moment, they were face-to-face. He was reaching for another arrow when the wolf bolted. Its legs buckled once, but it recovered and staggered into the underbrush, the cracking of twigs and branches testifying to its headlong flight.
Darak raced across the glade. “Are you all right? Tinnean?”
“Aye, Darak.”
Struath clutched his staff as if it were the only thing keeping him on his feet. Darak peered at his face, stunned by the stark terror he found there.
“He saw the wolf,” Gortin said. “In his vision today.”
Darak retraced his steps, bending low to examine the snow-dusted ground. His fingertips and nose confirmed what his eyes found: the wolf might have appeared in a vision, but it shed real blood.
A quick glance overhead showed the circle of sky had lightened to deep blue. Whatever the creature was, he had no time to track it. He walked back to the others. Struath was still staring after the wolf, visibly shaking. What in Chaos had the old man seen in his vision?
Yeorna gave a helpless shrug. “The wolf is … part of this. Somehow. And so are you, Darak. The gods must value honesty over humility.” Her rueful smile made heat flare in his cheeks. Silently, he took her proffered hand.
“Tree-Father,” Gortin said in a gentle voice. “It is time.”
As if waking from a dream, Struath took Tinnean’s hand.
“Darak. My hand.” Yeorna’s voice was gentle, but a hint of amusement lingered. It took him a moment to realize he was crushing her fingers. The embarrassing heat flushed his face again. Yeorna’s small smile only made it fiercer.
Struath led them sunwise, his lips moving in secret words too soft to hear. A blackbird greeted the dawn, its melodious warble drowned out by crashing in the underbrush. Yeorna’s fingers tightened on his. The clump of elders shook. Griane stumbled into the glade. Without thinking, he reached out his free hand to steady her. Ice-cold fingers clasped his. And then the glade disappeared.
Chapter 9
STRUATH GLANCED AROUND wildly, letting out his breath when he realized the wolf had not followed them. He wheezed out a shaky prayer, staring at the gaping wound that split the Oak nearly in two. Ragged shards of heartwood reared up, as sharp and menacing as the wolf’s fangs.
“Nay.”
“Tree-Father?” Gortin grasped his arm, his kind, homely face twisted with concern. “Are you all right?”
“I am fine.” A lie. But not as awful as the others he had spoken this night.
“Tree-Father. What is it?”
He had lied to Gortin. He had lied to Yeorna. He had lied to the council. When the wolf appeared in the glade, he was certain it had come to punish him.
Tinnean’s strangled cry startled him out of his thoughts. The boy tottered forward, picking his way through the branches that littered the ground. Struath flung off Gortin’s hand and stumbled after him, but Darak reached him first. He grabbed Tinnean’s hand as he reached for one of the Holly’s branches, so heavy with leaves and berries that it brushed the ground.
“Don’t touch it, Tinnean. It could hurt you.”
Of course, Darak didn’t understand. He saw only the boy’s form, not the spirit inside. He saw only what he wanted to see.
Struath shuddered. Was he doing the same? He had seen the wolf in the vision that had come to him before the council meeting, but the rest was sheer invention: the mist-shrouded island, the wolf threatening Tinnean, the green-boughed Oak that rose from the heart of the island to protect the boy. It was the only way he could save him—and the ancient spirit that now inhabited his body.
The boy stroked one shiny green leaf with his forefinger. His eyes closed. He swayed, might have fallen if Darak hadn’t steadied him. He reached for another leaf and jerked back with a gasp, staring at the blood welling up on his fingertip.
“You see? It can hurt.” Darak grabbed his hand and sucked the blood away. Seeing Tinnean’s mystified expression, he said, “To keep it clean.” He raised the finger to Tinnean’s lips and the boy obediently sucked at it, then rolled the blood on his tongue, tasting it.
When he looked up, his face was serious. He bowed to Yeorna and to Gortin. He smoothed Griane’s hair. Cold palms clasped his cheeks. It took Struath a moment to realize the Oak-Lord was imitating the gesture he had used so often when trying to reach his spirit. Struath stared into those blue eyes, humbled by the knowledge of the spirit that looked out from them.
Finally, the boy turned to Darak. He hesitated, then seized him by the shoulders and shook him. After a moment of stunned surprise, Darak’s arms went around him. He hugged him hard and abruptly pulled away. “Aye. Well. That’s fine. Everything’ll be all right now.”
Tinnean smiled. That errant lock of hair fell across his forehead. Struath resisted the urge to brush it back.
“So. We’re here.” Darak’s voice still sounded a bit thick, but his expression had settled into its usual sternness. “What happens now, Struath?”
The boy turned back to the Tree and laid his palms against the trunk. His head fell back, his mouth half open in a smile. Still smiling, he sank slowly to his knees and fell to the ground.
The boy’s body fell away. The faint thrum that he had sensed upon entering the grove became a roar as the energy flowed around him and through him and into him, no longer tugging at the periphery of his awareness, but becoming a vital, throbbing power that was awareness.
He stood rooted once again to earth, branches touching sky and ground. He observed each of the tiny creatures that wriggled among his roots, the wren perched on one branch. He felt the small tremor that quivered through the branch as the bird shifted its weight, the scratch of its claws on his bark, the lightest brush of air as it fluttered its wings.
He drew strength from the soil beneath him and energy from the newly risen sun above. He was the center, linking earth and sky. The energy pulsed with the same urgency as the tattoo he had known in the boy’s body. Each pulse carried the memory of countless seasons unfolding with slow inevitability: spring’s sap rising inside him, summer’s heat metamorphosed into flowers, autumn’s frost riming his branches, winter’s ice scoring his bark.
He was Holly and he was home.
The thrum of recognition raced through the forest as the others welcome
d him. He touched hazel, willow, elder, sensed the eagerness of the birch, the defensiveness of the quickthorn. Only the Oak was silent.
He had seen its shattered limbs, but many of his had been sundered as well. Never, in all their cold-time battles, had he defeated the Oak. Yet when he brought his awareness to bear upon the other half of himself, he discovered only an empty shell.
He allowed his consciousness to expand until it encompassed the whole of the First Forest. He knew the wolf packs that prowled its shadowy depths, the eagles that circled its canopy, the fish that swam in the dark pools. He found the rootless ones whose spirits guarded the forest. He found Hernan, protector of the beasts, antlered head cocked as if sensing his return.
A fox scented the wind. Its sleek, small body stretched, grew a man’s torso, a man’s arms and legs. A long tongue lolled out as the Trickster smiled. With a quick swish of his brush, the god shifted back into fox-form and darted into the shadows.
His awareness soared farther. He tasted sun. He smelled wind. He touched cold. Nowhere could he feel the Oak.
The others echoed back his sense of wrongness; it drifted around him like mist. Out of the mist, he drew their memories of the darkness that had invaded the grove and the boy whose spirit had collided with his.
Another sensation, dim but discernible, intruded on his consciousness. It emanated from the outsiders. The big man was on his knees, cradling the body that had sheltered his spirit. The girl with the fox-fur hair knelt beside him, fingers pressed against the boy’s wrist. The others stood near them, making those strange gestures with their fingers.
The agitated pulse of their energies was not-good. He withdrew his awareness, only to have it pulled back when the old one began chanting. The sound tugged at him, urging him to abandon his Tree and walk again among men. The trees added their collective energy, reminding him that the Tree-Lords had always had a responsibility to the world of Men, the youngest and most helpless of the Maker’s creations.
He resisted the call. He belonged here. His being felt complete, connected, whole. His power was undisputed, his ancient rival vanquished, never again to challenge him for supremacy.
But it was not enough. It would never be enough. During the dark half of the year, he reigned supreme, but the bright half belonged to the Oak. It had always been the way. It would always be the way. To destroy that balance was to destroy the world the Maker had created.
It was not-right.
From the trees’ vast store of knowledge, he gleaned the words to communicate with them and shaped the memories of the path he had taken once before. Then he gathered his strength and sent his spirit back into the body of the boy called Tinnean.
Struath gripped Darak’s shoulder, forcing him to see what he saw. The boy’s chest heaved again, then rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. His eyes fluttered open. He stared up at them, searching their faces as if he had never seen them before.
Darak hugged him so hard Struath could hear the breath whoosh out of that slender body.
“You scared the life out of me.” Then he seemed to remember himself and added, “What happened, lad? Did you faint? Was it the shock of being here again?”
“Darak, one question at a time,” Yeorna said.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He kept shaking his head, grinning foolishly. “You’re not hurt? Can you stand, do you think? Nay, best wait till you’ve got your strength back.”
Struath held up his hand and Darak subsided, but he kept touching Tinnean as if he couldn’t believe he was real. “What happened?”
“I went into the Tree.”
“On your own?” Darak interrupted. “Just like that?” Struath silenced him with a brusque gesture. “Why did you go into the Tree?”
“I am the Tree.”
Struath let out his breath. The vision may have been a lie, but his intuition had been correct. Why, then, had his spirit returned to Tinnean’s body? Before he could ask, Darak pulled the Oak-Lord to his feet.
“He’s still a little muddled. But he’s back. You can see that. He’ll be fine once we get him home.”
“This is my home, Darak.”
“This is not your home!”
“Be silent!” Struath held Darak with his gaze until he was certain the younger man had regained his control. “Why did you come back to us, my lord?”
“To find the Oak.”
Struath swayed, would have fallen if Gortin hadn’t steadied him. In his initiate’s stricken expression, he saw his own sick fear. The Oak’s spirit had not taken refuge in the boy. It was gone. Lost.
Yeorna recovered first. “You … you are not the Oak?”
“Nay.”
“You see?” Even through his haze of fear, Struath could hear the relief in Darak’s voice.
“I am the Holly.”
Struath’s legs folded under him. Somewhere close by, a wren warbled, its song a sweet counterpoint to Darak’s harsh breathing. Closer still, Griane’s voice, asking if he was in pain. The bones in his back cracked in protest as he bent his head to the forest floor. The musty scent of dead leaves and cold earth filled his nostrils.
“My lord. Forgive me for not knowing you.”
Chapter 10
DARAK DRAGGED STRUATH to his feet, ignoring his grunt of pain. “How can you do this?”
“Take your hands off of me.”
He released him, but returned the shaman’s glare. “I trusted you. I brought him here because you told me you could restore him. And when he comes back—with no help from any of you priests—you fall on your knees and feed his madness.”
“He is not mad. He is the Holly.”
“First he was the Oak. Now the Holly. Who’ll you decide he is next—the Trickster?”
Struath’s head snapped back as if he had struck him.
“How dare you speak to the Tree-Father that way?” Gortin’s face was flushed with outrage.
“You heard him yourself,” Yeorna said. “Why won’t you believe him?”
“Because I’d have to accept that my brother is gone!”
The sympathy on Yeorna’s face was more unbearable than the awe he’d seen on Struath’s. He spun away from her outstretched hand to face his brother. Tinnean backed away from him, wary as a deer.
“I won’t hurt you. I won’t even touch you. Do you understand me?”
A cautious nod.
“You say you’re … the Holly?” Just speaking the words made him sick.
Another nod.
“Then go back into the Tree where you belong and send Tinnean’s spirit back to his body.”
“I cannot go back. I must find the Oak.”
“Damn the Oak.” Even Griane gasped at his sacrilege, but Darak was beyond caring. “I want my brother.”
“His spirit is not in the Tree.”
Darak’s gut clenched as if he’d been punched. His lips managed to shape the question, but it took three attempts before sound emerged. “Where?”
“I do not know.”
So utterly, inhumanly calm. He might have been talking about a missing fishhook. This could not be his brother. Surely, even in the depths of madness, something of Tinnean would remain.
“Perhaps he is with the Oak,” the Holly-Lord said.
“You know where the Oak is?” Struath asked even as Darak demanded, “Why?”
The Holly-Lord looked from one to the other as if trying to decide which question to answer first. “They were together that night.” He winced. Perhaps he felt some emotion, after all.
“What happened?” Struath’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Do you remember?”
“The others helped me understand.”
“The others?” Struath asked.
The Holly-Lord gestured to the surrounding trees, his expression softening. Darak clenched his fists. He could feel tenderness for the trees and nothing at all for Tinnean.
“Tell us,” Struath said. “Please.”
The Holly-Lord’s face went blank, as if his sp
irit had left his body again or he was looking at something none of them could see. Then he nodded. “It was like a great storm ripped the Tree apart. I was not-rooted. Drifting like … like smoke from a fire. I saw the small man running. And there was another … more … ripping. I touched another spirit. It was not a tree. I think it was the small man.”
“Tinnean,” Darak said. “His name is Tinnean.”
Ever since the battle, he had been haunted by the image of that slender body hurtling through the air, imagined the spikes on the holly leaves that had left such long, bloody scratches. He’d seen the spikes for himself now. Twice as long as those of the quickthorn that had ripped open his arm. And Tinnean’s arms so much skinnier than his. The small man who wasn’t even a man yet.
The Holly-Lord was studying him. Darak let out his breath slowly, forcing himself to appear just as dispassionate.
“And then?”
“The Oak disappeared.” He closed his eyes, one hand fisted against his chest. But when he opened them a moment later, his voice was as calm as ever.
“The small … Tinnean … he disappeared. I was rooted again, but not in the earth. I fell. It was dark. And then I woke in this body.”
“Tinnean’s body.” Darak ground out the words between clenched teeth.
“Tinnean’s body,” the Holly-Lord agreed.
“Do you know where they are?” Struath asked. “The Oak and Tinnean?”
“There is a place …” He frowned. “The words are hard to find.” Again, his face went blank. “There is a place where the Oak rests in the warm-time. Where the trees are always green.”
“The Summerlands.” Gortin breathed the words on a soft exhalation of wonder.
“Of course.” Yeorna’s voice was breathless with hope. “That was your vision, Tree-Father. The Oak. The island.”
Struath nodded, but he looked troubled. Darak was, too. “The legends say the Maker carries the spirit of the Oak to the Summerlands after his defeat at Midsummer. Why would he go there now?”
Heartwood (Tricksters Game) Page 8
