Struath’s breath hissed in. On trembling legs, he tottered along the embankment. The branches of the sunberry drooped under their heavy coat of snow. He got down on his knees, rooting among the dead leaves, heedless of the snow that tumbled onto his neck and shoulders. His shaking fingers closed around the tiny, frozen body. He dragged it out from beneath the branches. His braids brushed the wren’s feathers, just as they had during his vision of the robin. He was still struggling to rise when he heard the Holly-Lord call his name.
They were standing together at the cave’s entrance. The Holly-Lord grinned and waved. “Look, Struath,” he called. “Yeorna is walking.”
She looked heartbreakingly frail, clinging to the Holly-Lord, but after a moment, she shrugged off his arm and took a small, tentative step, like a child learning to walk. She flung back her braid and took another step, more confident now.
The wren slipped from his fingers. On his knees, Struath’s eyes met hers. Yeorna smiled.
The Holly-Lord raced toward him, laughing. “See how much better she is?”
“Go into the cave.”
“Are you hurt? Shall I fetch Griane’s magic—?”
“Go into the cave and stay there.”
“But—”
“Go. Now!”
Frowning, he obeyed. Yeorna ignored the Holly-Lord’s curious glance, her glittering eyes fixed on him as he struggled to rise. Moving carefully, she walked forward until only a few paces separated them.
Although he knew the truth, he heard himself asking in a weak, pathetic voice, “Yeorna?” When Yeorna pursed her lips in that familiar look of fond reproof, Struath moaned.
“It’s been a long time. Hasn’t it, little rook?”
Struath’s heart slammed against his ribs. Belatedly, he threw up wards, weaving the thin strands of blue, green, red, and silver into a web of protection. Morgath did the same, his smile fading as the wards trembled. With a frown of concentration, he reinforced them.
Struath murmured a prayer. Morgath had stolen the wren’s body and Yeorna’s the same day and still had enough power to erect wards.
“Did you ever think about me?”
Struath shook his head.
“Did you care what I suffered?”
Again, Struath shook his head, unwilling to reveal all those sleepless nights.
Morgath wet his lips. “It was like living inside …” He hesitated, searching for the word. “… a nightmare. Knowing you will never wake.” The sweet smile made the words even more horrifying.
“Magic is tricky in … that place. Because everything keeps shifting.” Struath nodded dumbly, the apprentice soaking up his mentor’s wisdom. “You can hear the others. Howling. And you know that soon … you will be howling with them.”
Panting, Morgath paused to reinforce the wards. Struath must keep him talking, force him to expend more of his energy. Perhaps then the wards would fail.
“What is it like? Taking a … a human?”
“Delicious.” Morgath stroked Yeorna’s long, golden braid almost shyly. “She was my first. I’m glad she is so pretty.” The tip of the braid stroked Yeorna’s cheek. “Did you ever lie with her?” Morgath dismissed the idea with a quick shake of the head. “The boy … he would be more to your taste.”
The sly glance brought heat to Struath’s cheeks. Against his will, he found himself staring at Yeorna’s long fingers, so like his mentor’s.
“The Hunter’s brother, isn’t he? He has the look of him.”
Thank the gods, he had not called the Holly-Lord by his title. Whatever happened, he must keep the truth from Morgath.
“I might enjoy being a woman.” Releasing the braid, the fingers traced the line of Yeorna’s jaw. “Their bodies have so many contrasts. Soft in some places.” His hands moved lower, cupping Yeorna’s breasts. “Hard in others.” He thumbed Yeorna’s nipples until Struath could see them jutting against the wool of her robe. “Curves.” Hands cradling her belly. “And hollows.” Hands cupping her sex, fingers stroking through the wool. “If she had fought, it would have been sweeter.”
Struath shook as the destroying power surged inside of him. He controlled it with an effort. He must try and shake the Destroyer’s confidence, to force him to make a mistake.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“To watch you die.”
“Then kill me.”
“I’ve waited half a lifetime. I will not be rushed.”
“I understand that you’d want revenge against me. But why destroy the whole world?”
“There are other worlds. Did you know that? The Trickster told me. He helps me.”
“You, too?”
The smile faded, then reasserted itself. “He didn’t tell you I had returned, did he?”
“He didn’t have to. I’ve known since the beginning.”
“You lie.”
“Think that if it pleases you. You always loved believing you were the most powerful being in the world.”
“What other man has ever escaped … that place?”
“You think you did that on your own?” Struath laughed. Although it sounded more like a frightened wheeze, the laughter made Morgath’s wards tremble. “Has your time in the body of animals blinded you to the truth?” Frantically, he searched for a truth to offer, hoping Morgath would believe his pause to be merely dramatic. He seized on Morgath’s last words. “Do you really think you ‘escaped?’ You poor fool, the Lord of Chaos let you go.”
Morgath was breathing hard now, but still in control. “Perhaps. He has always been generous to those who do his work. That is why he has permitted you to live so long.”
“If you mean the wren—”
“I mean the One Tree.”
Struath tried to school his features to immobility and knew he had failed when Morgath smiled. “I felt you that night.”
It was what he had always feared, what he had refused to admit.
“The Unmaker might have opened the portal, but you drew me to the grove. So if anyone is responsible for destroying the world, it is you, little rook.”
“Maker, forgive me,” he whispered.
“I doubt it. But when I cast out your spirit, the Unmaker will welcome you.”
“You are a monster.”
“You made me that way.”
“Nay.”
“I sought knowledge. Truth.”
“You sought power. You subverted nature.”
Morgath laughed, a harsh, ugly sound utterly unlike Yeorna’s. “You drove my spirit out of my body. Was that not a subversion of nature?”
“You had transgressed. You were an abomination in the sight of man and gods alike.”
“And you loved me.”
Struath opened his mouth, then closed it.
“When you took the wren, the power made you tremble.”
“Because it was wrong.”
“Because you lusted after it. Even more than you lusted after me.”
Struath gathered the power, holding it close.
“You still lust after power. You love the respect you see in men’s eyes. And you love the fear even more.”
Struath pulled the energy from the ground, from the air, from the river below, from the feeble sunlight straining through the clouds.
“I could have sealed your fate that day. Only my silence saved you. Did you ever think of that as you drank in the respect and the fear of lesser men?”
Struath’s wards trembled as the energy raged, forging him into a weapon of destruction.
Morgath’s lips curled in a sneer. “You pretend to despise me, but you envy me. Because I am strong. Because I have the will to pursue power, while you only dream of it. Because, deep inside, you know we are the same. Only I have the courage to admit it.”
He had only this one chance. He could not fail.
Maker, give me strength.
Darak was racing along the riverbank when the blue light erupted. He needed both hands to scramble up the embankment, but when he
neared the top, he paused long enough to unsling his bow and nock an arrow. Everything seemed to move very slowly after that, but later he realized it all happened in the space of a few heartbeats.
The spiderwebs of color glittering around Struath and Yeorna, stained blue by the spectral light. The same crackle of energy he had felt in the clearing. Cuillon, crawling out of the cave. His own shout, echoing loudly in his ears, as he urged him to get back, get back now. Yeorna whirling toward him. The stench of brimstone. Blue light spilling over Struath like a waterfall, coalescing into a single stream that hurtled toward Yeorna and shattered into brilliant white shards. A second blue stream racing toward Struath. Energy exploding all around. The bow falling from his grasp. Yeorna’s body hurtling into his. Yeorna’s hands clutching his arms. Yeorna’s eyes, wild with fear, as they rolled toward the edge of the embankment.
A perfect black rectangle opened in the middle of the leaf-strewn slope. Something flickered in the darkness. Tiny points of white light. Stars.
He heard a familiar, high-pitched yip. “Welcome to Chaos, children.”
The Trickster’s foot nudged them over the edge. He heard Cuillon shouting, Yeorna screaming. Then there was only the darkness and the stars and the two of them, falling up and up and up.
PART THREE
In the beginning,
Before gods or men existed,
Before there was sun or moon, earth or sea,
In the beginning,
There was Chaos.
—The Creation of the World
Chapter 31
THEY CLUNG TO EACH OTHER like lovers. Stars streaked past in a pale blur. It was like skidding down the icy slopes of Eagles Mount at night—except now the ground lay above them and instead of the shriek of wind, Darak heard only Yeorna’s scream, fading to a hoarse sob and then to silence.
And still they tumbled, the stars spinning around them in sickening circles. Darak closed his eyes, but that only made it worse. He opened them again to discover a milky opalescence filling the sky, now overhead, now beneath. A false promise of dawn, of hope, in a place that possessed neither.
Something loomed out of the light. Above, below, above, below. A wall? A cliff? They hurtled toward it. Yeorna screamed again. Darak could make out rocks, creamy and jagged. Above. Below. Holding fast to Yeorna, he hurled his body to the right, bracing himself for a bone-jarring collision. They landed as softly as falling into a pile of fleece.
They lay panting, still clinging to each other. In the Grain-Mother’s eyes, he saw his surprise, in her smile, the same giddiness at their unexpected deliverance.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded. He rose and extended a hand to help her to her feet.
“What happened?”
She lowered her head. “Cuillon went outside. To watch for you. Struath followed. They were gone so long, I grew frightened. So I went after them.” She darted a glance at him, biting her lip. “They were by the sunberry bush. Struath was … he was …”
“For mercy’s sake, Yeorna. Just tell me!”
“Cuillon was lying facedown over a boulder. I thought perhaps he was sick, but then I saw Struath reach down … and pull his robe up.” Her voice broke. “I think I must have screamed then. Struath looked up … oh, gods, Darak, his face. It was terrible. And then he attacked me.”
Darak kept shaking his head, but Fellgair’s words rang in his head: “They were lovers. Morgath offered him pleasure such as he had never experienced before or since.”
“Struath couldn’t … he would never hurt Cuillon.”
“There were things that happened … while you were hunting. I just thought … gods forgive me, I thought Struath was being … affectionate.”
Struath would never force himself on the Holly-Lord. Never. Yeorna was wrong.
“I had to protect myself.”
The blue light had surrounded both of them. Yeorna could erect wards, but if she possessed that destroying power, surely Struath would have enlisted her help to combat the wolf.
“You’d have done the same. Merciful gods, Darak, he’s your brother.”
He went very still, then abruptly turned away as if overcome with emotion. The wren. Morgath had taken the wren. And when poor Yeorna had gone to help it, he had taken her.
The sudden heaviness in the air alerted him. He whirled around and the dagger sliced open his arm. As Morgath raised his hand for another blow, he jabbed his fist into his belly. Morgath fell to his knees, doubled over.
Energy crawled over Darak’s skin like a thousand ants. The ants became bees, the irritating prickles a net of stingers that settled over him. In the wake of the pain, numbness crept down his arms.
He seized Morgath by the hair and yanked his head back. Against his will, his gaze was drawn away from the slender throat, past the trembling mouth and the flushed cheeks to the twin tears trembling on the pale lashes and finally, to those pleading blue eyes.
Yeorna was dead. It was Morgath staring out of those eyes now.
The dagger shuddered in his hand like a frightened animal—or a tiny, terrified wren.
Morgath threw himself back, toppling them both. The dagger slipped from Darak’s numb fingers. Morgath twisted out of his grasp and scuttled away on hands and knees. Darak could only crouch there, hands trailing limply on the ground.
“Things change in Chaos, Hunter. Lucky for you. Otherwise, you’d be dead.” Morgath smiled. “Do you have any final words before I—?”
Darak exploded out of his crouch. He heard a satisfying grunt as his head rammed into the soft belly, another when Morgath collided with the cliff. The numbness ebbed and strength returned to his hands. He pinned Morgath’s wrist against the wall. His free hand gripped the slender throat.
Don’t think of that. Yeorna is gone.
The air roiled, the same energy he had felt at the bog. Behind Morgath, the cliff shimmered, the white stone turning clear as quartz. Darak flung himself backward, regaining his balance in time to see Morgath lunge through the stone. He thought he heard laughter, but it faded as the cliff dissolved into a waterfall that tumbled out of the sky.
The insistent whine died. Morgath was gone. He was alone on a star-studded plain.
The Tree-Father lay huddled against a boulder, his arm and legs twisted at strange angles. Cuillon crouched beside him, searching for his heart tattoo.
“He’s gone, Holly-Lord.”
Ignoring the Trickster, Cuillon stroked Struath’s hand. He had disobeyed Darak and left the cave. Now Struath was dead. Darak had fallen into Chaos. Yeorna …
He gazed at the wren and the pressure in his chest grew heavier. Yeorna was gone, too. Morgath had taken her body. Now her spirit would never reach the Floating Islands. It would be trapped in Chaos with the Oak and Tinnean.
“Why did you open the portal?” he asked.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Not like that.”
“So particular. I do hope Griane is more grateful.” The Trickster’s breath warmed his ear. “She is in the Summerlands, Holly-Lord. I could take you to her.”
Joy filled him, as fierce and pure as when he had first seen his Mountain. Then he stared down at Struath’s hand. Thin blue twigs branched under the loose skin to curve around the brown mark of the acorn. “I cannot leave Struath.”
“Humans do. They leave their dead to the elements. Then bury the bones in a cairn.”
“Cairn?”
“A pile of stones.”
Animals left their dead in the forest. Their bodies fed the carrion eaters. Their bones fed the earth. It was right. But Struath hated the cold. How could he leave him here, exposed to snow and rain, to sharp beaks and fangs?
“I will bury Struath.”
“As you wish.”
“You will help me.”
He expected the Trickster to argue, but he simply shrugged. Together, they carved out a shallow trench in the earth and laid Struath in it. Cuillon straightened the twisted legs, folded h
is hands across his chest, and closed the robin’s-egg eye. That way, Struath almost looked like he was sleeping.
The first raindrop fell while they were building the thing called cairn. The shower quickly became a downpour, as if the Maker wept for Struath. He was lowering a stone onto Struath’s neck when he noticed the leather thong. He dug through the rocks until he uncovered the small green pouch. Tugging open the strings at the top, he removed the spirit catcher. The first time he had seen the crystal, it had sparkled as if it held the sun. Now it lay in his palm, as empty as Struath’s body.
“Take it if you like, but let’s be done with this.” The Trickster looked disgruntled. Rain dripped off his long nose. He shook himself, sending droplets flying.
“The sun is shining in the Summerlands and Griane awaits us.”
“I cannot go to the Summerlands.”
The Trickster sighed. “Of course you can. Just give me your hand.”
“I have to go to Chaos.”
The Trickster’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot go to Chaos.”
“Darak needs the spirit catcher.”
“Darak does not know how to use the spirit catcher.”
“We will find a way.”
“I will not permit it.”
Cuillon rose. So did the Trickster. Cuillon squinted up at him, blinking back raindrops. “I may not be as old as you, but I am still a god.”
“In the very fragile body of a human.”
“Do you threaten me, Trickster?”
“Not yet.”
“You must open a portal.”
“I cannot.”
“You opened one before.”
“I cannot open a portal to Chaos for you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I gave Darak my word that I would keep you safe.”
Cuillon swiped the rain out of his eyes. The Trickster glared at him. “Yes, you heard me. I told Darak I would protect you.”
“I will tell him that you lied.”
The Trickster drew back. “I never lie. I may hold back certain details, but I never lie.”
“We will finish Struath’s cairn. Then you will open the portal.”
Heartwood (Tricksters Game) Page 23
