Heartwood (Tricksters Game)

by Barbara Campbell

  Fire was warmth against the cold, light in the darkness. Fire was a gift of life. But did he dare accept a gift from the Trickster-God? For that was surely who he had just encountered. The legends spoke of the Trickster taking the form of a fox to charm hunter and prey alike. And only the Trickster would have taunted him with those visions of his past.

  No sane man wanted to be in the Trickster’s debt, but neither could he afford to offend the god by refusing his gift. They had survived four nights without fire, but if a storm blew in, if they could not find adequate shelter, they would suffer more than frostnipped fingers and toes.

  In the end, he brought down two wood pigeons with his sling and laid them on a rock as an offering. Then he hacked a fallen branch into a stave and touched it to the fire. As soon as it caught, the fire vanished without a trace of smoke or ash.

  He headed back to camp, stopping twice to set spring pole snares near the hare runs. He tried not to think about the vision the Trickster had sent, but he could not help wondering why the god would help them—and whether he would demand a much higher price than two dead birds.

  Chapter 14

  STRUATH LISTENED to Darak’s tale with mingled awe and resentment. He was grateful for Griane’s interruptions; it would have been undignified for him to ply Darak with such an endless stream of questions. All his life, he had dreamed of meeting a god face-to-face. And now, Darak had been chosen. Darak, who had cursed the gods. It was just the sort of irony the Trickster would enjoy.

  He told himself it was caution that urged him to temper Griane’s excitement by noting that it might have been a powerful animal spirit that Darak had encountered. When Darak revealed what the god had shown him, he told himself it was his skill in interpreting visions that made him press Darak for details that the younger man was clearly reluctant to provide. Yeorna surprised him by interrupting.

  “Tree-Father, Darak’s vision seems a personal one with no bearing on our quest. I don’t think we need to hear all the details. Unless …” She turned to Darak who shrugged uncomfortably.

  “As you say, Grain-Mother, the vision was personal.”

  “The Trickster’s interest worries me. Your offering was generous, but …”

  “You think I should return the fire?”

  Yeorna’s brow wrinkled in thought. “Tree-Father, what do you advise?”

  Struath had to admire her diplomacy, saving Darak’s pride in one breath and soothing his in the next. He envied Yeorna’s gift all the more because he believed it to be unconscious, born of concern for her kinfolk. Humbled, he vowed to be more like her.

  Aloud, he simply said, “We need fire if we are to survive. The gods must know that. As to the Trickster, perhaps Brana can offer some clue as to his part in all of this.”

  “Brana?”

  He glanced quickly at Darak, but found only confusion in his face. “My spirit guide.” He shook his head in exasperation; how quickly he forgot his vow to be understanding.

  “Forgive me, Tree-Father. I didn’t know.” The title surprised him as much as the apology, but magic always humbled Darak. He waved away the apology and even managed a smile. It was ridiculous, this constant striving with Darak. Worse, it was beneath him.

  The wolf had tainted his perceptions. The animal haunted him—both the malevolent creature he had seen in his vision and the hulking beast they had encountered in the grove. The meaning of both encounters still eluded him. Darak had seen a she-wolf on his vision quest. Could the vision have been warning him that Darak was a threat?

  Struath shook his head. Darak might challenge his authority, but he was committed to finding Tinnean.

  “Tree-Father?”

  Yeorna’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to find all of them watching him.

  “I was just thinking. About the Trickster.”

  Darak rose. “With respect, Struath, think about him while we move camp.” Griane groaned. “I passed a grotto under an embankment less than half a mile on. If we hurry, we can be settled in before dark.”

  Struath waited impatiently for the others to fall asleep. So far, he had been useless on this quest, his aging body slowing their progress and leaving him too exhausted at night to attempt a vision. Tonight, he had all but promised one.

  He stared into the flames.

  Please gods, give me the strength.

  Without Gortin’s chants or the drum or the dream-herbs, he could rely only on his years of training—and on his spirit guide.

  Please, Brana, heed my call.

  Once, his spirit had been able to slip from his body between one breath and the next. Once, he had only to call Brana’s name for her to appear. For the last six moons, he had struggled like an apprentice, the vision of the wolf his only reward.

  Please, Maker, let me See.

  He breathed deeply, willing his body to relax. Breathing. Stillness. Emptiness. The first lessons an apprentice learned. Opening the mind. Surrendering the spirit.

  The firelight danced. The familiar paralysis crept into his limbs. Stone and earth fell away. A roaring filled his ears. The flames stretched into a fiery tunnel and he followed it, through light into rushing darkness.

  He stood alone on a vast plain. The grasses stirred, but not from any wind known to men. They swirled in a slow spiral, rich green changing to yellow, then orange, then deepening to dark red. A tree thrust out of the grass. Branches shot skyward, green leaves fluttering. The seven-lobed leaves of the blood-oak, he realized. It grew taller, wide-spreading branches arcing above his head. On the lowest branch perched a robin.

  Tears of gratitude spilled down his face. The Oak was alive. Its sacred bird still sang in its branches. As he bowed his head to whisper a prayer of thanks, the robin’s song died.

  He looked up to find that the grass around the Oak had withered, revealing patches of parched earth. The Oak’s branches shriveled. Green leaves turned brown. Thorns erupted on twisted limbs. The robin screamed with Tinnean’s voice as the thorns pierced its breast.

  Struath reached for it, only to be driven back by the blood. Impossible gouts of it, gushing out of the small bird, drenching his robe, soaking the grass until the plain lay flooded in a seething red torrent. And then it vanished, leaving an endless expanse of snow and ice.

  The robin fell from the branch. He bent to lift it in cupped hands, bloody braids brushing its mauled body.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”

  One glazed eye winked at him.

  Struath gasped. The robin slipped from his grasp. Claws scrabbled on ice as it hopped erect with an agitated flutter of wings. The dainty beak grew thick and hooked. The wings stretched. The tail widened into a wedge. The blue and gold of the robin’s feathers transformed into iridescent black.

  His spirit guide winked again.

  “You are cruel, Brana.”

  “So is the world.”

  It was the first time his raven had appeared to him since the plague. He had never been without her so long, not since he had first heard her gruff voice as a child of ten, speaking to him in his dreams.

  “Why did you desert me?”

  “I didn’t desert you.”

  “You didn’t come when I called.”

  The shaggy feathers at her neck rose. “I am not a dog.”

  “I didn’t mean that.”

  She croaked, either in dismissal or acceptance. Acceptance, he decided, as the feathers subsided. “You were asking the wrong questions. Looking in the wrong places.”

  “I didn’t know what to ask. Or where to look.”

  “Obviously.”

  Always she spoke in riddles, teasing him, testing him. No one knew him as well, his strengths, his weaknesses, his hidden fears, his secret desires. It was why he loved her—and hated her sometimes.

  “Is the Oak dead?”

  “The Oak’s spirit is immortal.”

  “But its body?”

  “Well.” Brana cocked her head, regarding him with beady, black e
yes. “Bodies may be destroyed. Or exchanged.”

  “Exchanged?”

  “Robin to raven. Tree to boy.”

  Green-boughed oak to twisted thorn tree.

  “Will you fly with me?”

  Struath stared at her, aghast. “There is more?”

  “If you will See.”

  “I have tried to See. My visions are unclear.”

  “Because you do not wish to See the truth. Will you fly with me?”

  He sighed and gave her the ritual answer. “I will fly.”

  With a little hop and a powerful flap of wings, she ascended. He shrugged his shoulders. His wings sprouted and opened. He closed his eyes and leaped into the air, flapping frantically. No matter how many times they flew together, he always feared he would fall.

  The ice-covered plain vanished, replaced by the dark expanse of a forest. The moon rode on his shoulder as he flew. Despite his fear, he reveled in the ease of their journey. If only Brana could carry them all to the Summerlands.

  She dove earthward and he followed, wincing as he dodged through the maze of branches. He finally spotted her, perched on the broken spar of a pine. Wings spread to slow his flight, he landed with a graceless skitter of talons. Brana greeted him with a derisive caw.

  He always felt clumsy next to her, once more the apprentice struggling to master the gifts of vision, desperate to please the man who had chosen him. But he had persevered; in the end, he had mastered the master and become Tree-Father, respected and admired by his entire tribe.

  Brana gave him a sharp peck. “Stop congratulating yourself and See.”

  He recognized the clearing where they had camped the first night. The feathers on his neck rose when he beheld the wolf, gnawing the bones of some small animal. Then the wolf raised its head and he realized his error. Although the moon leached the ruddiness from its fur, there was no mistaking that narrow muzzle and white ruff. He teetered on his perch, would have fallen if Brana hadn’t seized him by the back of the neck and pulled him upright again.

  “Lord Trickster,” he whispered.

  The fox inclined his head, but did not deign to answer. Instead, he returned to his kill. Even from his perch, Struath could hear the crunch of bones.

  The Trickster’s head came up. A form limped out of the shadows. This time, there was no mistaking the wolf; the broken shaft of Darak’s arrow protruded from its haunch.

  The wolf crouched, growling. A single yip from the Trickster changed the growl into a whine. Tail curled under, the wolf bellied forward to expose its throat. It trembled in fearful submission when the Trickster nipped its neck. Stiff-legged, the Trickster circled the wolf. His tongue flicked out to touch the broken arrow. It vanished. Another lick closed the wound. The wolf bounded to its feet, racing in frenzied circles around the Trickster. The god yawned. Finally, as if tiring of the antics, the Trickster yipped again and the wolf trotted back to him, panting.

  They sat in the clearing, facing each other. The wolf stared intently at the Trickster, but if words passed between them, Struath could not hear them. Beside him, Brana shook herself irritably; she, too, must be excluded from their conversation.

  The Trickster looked up, fixing him with his gaze. At once the wolf rose, fur bristling. A low growl rumbled in its chest. Malevolent yellow eyes searched the trees and Struath shrank back.

  Brana croaked and flapped her wings, urging him to fly, but the Trickster’s eyes held him. With a harsh caw, Brana hopped off the perch and rose. His heart thudded wildly, but even the terror of abandonment could not break the Trickster’s spell. Helpless, he felt himself falling into those eyes, just as Darak had.

  The wolf paced back and forth beneath him. Exerting all his power, Struath managed to slow his descent, but still he fell. The wolf’s eyes met his. Its lips curled back in a snarl. The hatred he had encountered in that first vision assaulted him. Struath commanded his wings to spread, to lift him out of danger, but they hung useless. He drifted downward, close enough to see the muscles bunch in the wolf’s haunches, close enough to see the jaws gape open, revealing saliva-slick fangs.

  The wolf leaped.

  His wandering spirit slammed back into his body with a physical jolt that left his heart pounding so fiercely he feared he would die. He writhed on the wolfskins, racked by the convulsions that always followed a precipitous return from the other world. Strong arms seized him, held him tightly as he wheezed out his name, once, twice, three times, to reestablish the boundaries of his spirit. When the convulsions ceased, he patted his head, trembling hands moving down his body to reestablish the boundaries of his physical self.

  He looked up into Darak’s eyes. Whatever the flickering firelight revealed, it made the younger man grab his hands. Struath clutched them, grateful for their strength.

  “Shall I wake Yeorna?” Darak whispered.

  Struath shook his head. Darak eased him back on the wolfskins. He held back a soft moan when those strong hands left him, but they returned moments later, lifting his head to dribble water into his mouth.

  “Can you tell me?”

  Darak listened without interruption, but his grip tightened when he described his narrow escape.

  “The place you saw the Oak. It doesn’t sound like the Summerlands.”

  “It may not be a real place at all. Visions are like that.”

  “But the Oak is alive?”

  “Its spirit is immortal. Those were Brana’s words.”

  Darak hesitated. “You … you didn’t see Tinnean?”

  “Nay, Darak. I’m sorry.”

  Darak shook his head as if ashamed for asking. “And the wolf?”

  Struath made himself speak the words aloud. “The wolf is my death.”

  “Not if I kill it first.” Darak gave him a tight-lipped smile. Though the eyes were gray, they glittered as ferociously as the wolf’s.

  Struath shuddered. Darak squeezed his hand again, gently this time. “Try to sleep.” When Struath just stared at him, he added, “Aye. Well. It’ll be dawn soon anyway.”

  Darak settled back, arms folded atop his upraised knees. After a long moment, he said, “Now we know the price of fire.”

  Chapter 15

  DETERMINED TO PUT as much distance as possible between them and the wolf, Darak pushed the others hard. Although they now had the luxury of fire to warm them at night, they found themselves facing another obstacle during the day: the forest was changing. The trees were still tall, but not as huge as the ancient ones near the grove, giving credence to the legend that the First Forest had sprung up around the One Tree.

  Without the giants blocking out the sun, smaller saplings and shrubs could exist. Instead of an open path between the trees, the underbrush grew thick. But it was more than the tangled vegetation that impeded their progress. Bushes seemed to spread wider to block the way. Trees leaned toward them, branches slapping their faces and snagging their mantles. Sharp-toothed brambles tore breeches and robes. Vines wove impenetrable barriers between the trees.

  The forest was fighting them—and it was winning. Slowly, inexorably, it forced them north.

  Reluctantly, Darak confronted the Holly-Lord. “We’re going the wrong way.”

  The Holly-Lord nodded.

  “Why?”

  “It is the way I always go.”

  “When?”

  “After the cold-time battle.”

  Struath raised his head. Lines of exhaustion etched the shaman’s face but his voice was as strong as ever. “To the Mountain, you mean?”

  “Aye.”

  “We can’t go north,” Darak said. “If we do, we’ll never reach the Summerlands.”

  The Holly-Lord watched him, tense and wary. Belatedly, Darak realized he had clenched his fists. He forced them open and kept his voice low. “We have to change direction. Can you make the forest understand?”

  “It is not-right. The trees know that.”

  “You’re the Holly-Lord. Command them.”

  The Holly-Lord cocke
d his head, frowning. “I do not understand.”

  Through gritted teeth, Darak ground out the words. “Tell them to let us go south.”

  Silently, the Holly-Lord rose. He passed among the trees, touching trunks, stroking branches, then turned back to them and shook his head.

  “All right. I’ll lead.”

  “The forest will not let us pass.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He bulled his way through the underbrush, shoving back branches that pressed against him with an all-too-real malevolence, using his body to open a way for the others. Occasionally, he would see an opening between the trees, but by the time they fought their way to it, the brush had choked off the path, leaving only that clear trail snaking north. It was as if the forest were taunting them.

  Finally, he stopped. Alone, he might have persevered, but he couldn’t risk the others. He wiped his streaming face and forced his gaze to meet the Holly-Lord’s.

  “Can you do anything?”

  He shrugged helplessly.

  Darak surrendered to the forest and turned north.

  The Holly-Lord heard the whispers racing through the trees, although he knew the others heard only the rustle of branches. There was no triumph in the sound. The forest did not know that emotion; it only knew the rightness of their new path, just as it had known that their attempt to travel toward the hidden place the others called the Summerlands had been not-right.

  Always before, the journey had passed so quickly. After the cold-time battle—winter, they called it winter—there was a rush of air and darkness and always the presence of his Maker, shielding his fragile spirit until he was safe in the ice cavern at the heart of the Mountain. While he rested and grew strong, he maintained his connection to the Holly, existing in both places at once. He could never explain that in words, not even to Struath who trusted him.

  Darak clearly did not. He often caught the big man studying him, deep furrows between his eye wings. Eyebrows. He was glad Darak led the way; the feel of those eyes had made unpleasant shivers run up and down his back.