Heartwood (Tricksters Game)

by Barbara Campbell

  They reached the pool at midmorning. She filled her waterskin, then pointed at the magical plants. She tried to explain her need to Rowan, but in the end, she made a small cut on her wrist. Their leaves fluttered wildly when the blood welled up. She plucked a silvery leaf and pressed it to the wound. This caused more fluttering. She pretended to cut other sprigs from it and the one with the heart-shaped leaves. She looked around the circle of worried faces, a question in her eyes.

  This time, the discussion lasted much longer. Perhaps it was forbidden to take anything away from the Summerlands. With an effort, she curbed her impatience. If the tree-folk refused permission, she would obey.

  Please Maker, let them understand.

  The sun had nearly reached its zenith when the tall oak-man stepped forward. He pointed to each of the plants and slowly nodded.

  “Thank you.” Griane flung her arms around one thick leg. The grooves around the oak-man’s dark eyes tilted upward ever so slightly. Perhaps oaks were simply more reticent than other trees or perhaps he was older. There was so much to learn here, so many things she wanted to know.

  You could stay. You would always have the tree-folk for friends.

  Griane shook her head as if beset by deerflies, wondering if the Trickster had put the thought in her head.

  She cut sprigs from each of the plants, careful to leave more than she took. She wondered what they were called, if they even had names. Heal-all, she decided for the silver-leafed one and heart-ease for the other. Imagine being the first to name a plant. Even Mother Netal had never done such a thing.

  She whispered a prayer of thanks to the plants and sprinkled water from the pool around their stems. Belatedly, she realized she had no way to carry them back with her. Finally, she hacked off the bottom of her mantle, but try as she might, she could not tie the thick ends of the bundle together. The tall oak-man touched her shoulder. With signs, she showed him what she needed. He nodded gravely and entered into another silent conversation. Again, Griane waited. She could understand why the gift of the plants had taken a long time, but how could tying up her bundle possibly spark such a protracted discussion?

  Finally, the oak-man unwound a long strand of ivy clinging to his chest. Griane smiled up at him. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

  Their pace was more leisurely now. Perhaps the tree-folk wanted her to enjoy her last impressions of the Summerlands. When she lingered beside a fat bush heavy with berries, they watched her with the same wonder they had evinced when she’d filled her waterskin. Rowan nodded when she pointed to the berries. Griane’s stomach growled, but she recalled one of the Memory-Keeper’s tales about a shaman who had feasted on the fruits of the Forever Isles and returned to his village the next morning to find that ten years had passed. Reluctantly, she contented herself with gathering berries. When she was back in the First Forest, she would allow herself to enjoy one.

  After that, they took pains to point out other foods to her. Soon her arms were overflowing with mushrooms and berries. What a bounty to bring to her folk.

  The sun was low in the sky when they reached a shore fringed with reeds and grasses. Perhaps the legends were true, then, about the Summerlands being an island. Certainly, they were right about the mist, although it was nothing like the giant fleece Old Sim described. It rose straighter than the walls of a house, the boundary between mist and water as neat and clean as if she had sketched it in the earth with a twig.

  Griane gaped at the mist-wall, wondering how Rowan or any of the tree-folk could possibly breach it. The pine-man looked tall enough to walk right through it without wetting his spiky green hair, but surely, tree-folk took to water as well as Cuillon had to climbing.

  She was still gazing at it when oak-men unwound the ivy that clung to their thick torsos. Willow-women lifted curving feet and sent long, slender shoots flying from their ankles. The shoots fell in perfect lines at the water’s edge. The ivy twisted under and over them, binding them together. The other tree-folk shook their branches. Green leaves showered down—birch, rowan, alder, ash, hazel—arranging themselves on top of the framework of willow and vine.

  A raft, Griane realized. A raft to carry her back to the First Forest.

  A smaller cascade of shoots and vines and leaves landed at her feet. Hot tears came to her eyes when she realized they were offering her a basket to carry her food and healing plants. Before she could wipe them away, Rowan touched her cheek. She raised her finger to her lips and her eyes widened. Whatever she told the others made their leaves flutter. Perhaps they expected a tear to be thick and tangy like sap.

  Bark-encrusted fingers caressed her hair, drooping catkins brushed her arms. All of them wanted to touch her and in turn, be touched by her. Griane patted grooved arms and leafy fingers. Whatever happened on this quest, she must live to tell the tale so future generations would know of the kindness and generosity of the tree-folk.

  Rowan stepped onto the raft and held out her hand. Griane tapped the leaves with her foot and found them hard as wood. She took a careful step, bracing herself for the raft to tilt or rock as a coracle might, but it was as solid underfoot as hard-packed dirt. She was still trying to find common ground between what should be and what was when she realized they were drifting away from shore.

  She clutched Rowan’s arm, but the raft skimmed the surface of the water so smoothly they might have been floating in the air. She waved to the tree-folk clustered on the shore and shouted her thanks. Here and there, arms rose in salute. She caught a final glimpse of green forest and blue sky and then the world turned white.

  She could not see the leaf-raft under her feet; even Rowan’s features were indistinct. Sound seemed to have vanished as well. Only the feel of Rowan’s fingers curled around hers held panic at bay.

  As suddenly and silently as they had entered the mist-wall, they emerged. Cold seared her lungs. After the brilliant colors of the Summerlands, the First Forest looked diminished, a gray-white world of bare-limbed trees and patchy snow. Even the greens of the pines and spruces seemed faded.

  She let out her breath in a grateful sigh when their raft drifted onto the bank, heaved another to feel earth beneath her feet. Rowan slipped a sprig of flowers behind her ear, a sweetly scented reminder of the Summerlands to carry with her. Griane sliced a strand of hair off with her dagger and offered it to Rowan. A thick bead of sap oozed down her face as she wound it around her wrist. Griane clung to her for a long moment, reluctant to leave the protection of those strong, encircling arms.

  Long after Rowan had disappeared, Griane stood on the riverbank waving, as if the act would stave off the loneliness that enveloped her as surely as the mist engulfed the little raft. Finally, she let her aching arm fall to her side. She pulled the sprig of white rowan blossoms from behind her ear and breathed in its fragrance. Then she turned her back on the mist-wall and started upriver to find her folk.

  Chapter 36

  BRACING HIMSELF FOR the inevitable pain, Cuillon sent his energy in search of the Oak once more. He maintained the connection as long as he could bear it. After that, he could only lie panting, his throat raw from the screams.

  If Griane were here, she would hold him. Yeorna would stroke his hair and croon one of her chants. Struath would tell a long story to distract him from the pain. And Darak would squeeze his hand and not even mind the thorns that cut his palm. All he could do was clutch Griane’s magic bag to his chest and pretend he was holding her.

  He forced himself to sit up, wincing as the twigs dug into his palms. His toes had burst through his shoes again, curving into long, twisted growths. How many more times could he reach for the Oak before his feet became rooted in the soil of Chaos?

  He fumbled for the dagger and clumsily sheared off the newly-sprouted leaves from his fingers. His feet were more difficult, but he could not walk on them as they were. He tied his dilapidated shoes to his belt and sawed off the growths, crying out when his dagger cut the boy’s flesh along with the woody protuberances that gr
ew from it. He bound the bloody stumps with doeskin, but left the leaves that sprouted from his wrists and ankles; they would only burst through again, tearing new holes in Tinnean’s sleeves and breeches.

  He pushed himself to his feet and tottered up a rise, following the trail of the Oak’s energy. When he reached the top, his heart tattoo quickened.

  It might be any tree, rising above the thicket, but the sweep of the branches looked so familiar that he found himself running. A tearing pain in his side made him slow to an awkward trot. Finally, he had to rest, never taking his eyes off the tree, fearful that if he looked away, it would vanish.

  Please, Maker, let it be real. Please let it be the Oak.

  He started off again, deliberately keeping his pace slow. The branches that had looked so wide from a distance seemed to dwindle along with his strength. But of course the Oak would have changed, just as he had. Inside, they were still the same.

  His legs were shaking when he reached the low scrub. Branches ripped new holes in Tinnean’s breeches. Twigs scraped his legs. Panting, he pushed past a squat shrub with clusters of violet flowers and stumbled into a clearing.

  His expectant smile faded. The stubby tree was the size of a rowan, its grooved trunk and twisted branches studded with thorns. Only when he stepped closer did he realize that the shriveled, brown leaves clinging to the branches had seven lobes and that the pebbles dotting the parched ground were misshapen acorns.

  Perhaps the Oak had taken shelter in this tree, just as he had taken refuge in the boy’s body. Perhaps the Oak was watching him right now, unable to recognize him.

  “Oak? I am the Holly. I am here.”

  Willing himself to ignore the pain of his inevitable transformation, he unwound the bandages on his hands and placed his fingertips between the thorns on the trunk.

  The energy rose to meet him, pulsing like a heartbeat. Each pulse carried the memories of earth beneath them and sky above, of intertwined roots and interlaced branches, of the first morning of creation and the cold, dark night of their final battle. Into him and through him, the energy flowed, filled with strange currents he had never sensed before: the loss that tinged the Oak’s memories of Midwinter, the helplessness that ate away at its heartwood. And within these currents, yet another. In his eagerness to reach the Oak, he had not sensed it immediately, but now he recognized the energy. How could he fail to when he had touched it once before? A small pulse within the ebb and flow of the Oak’s energy, but distinct and real and alive.

  Tinnean.

  Icicles melting on tree branches. Sap rising in the trunk.

  The boy gave him images of spring.

  New buds sprouting on twigs. Leaves unfolding on lightning-blasted branches.

  The Oak gave him images of renewal.

  Panting, he fought the pain to offer his own image: seedlings springing up beside a fallen log.

  Cuillon fell to the ground, screaming. Desperately, he fought the transformation, calling up the essence of the boy’s humanity to keep his true self from reclaiming him, calling upon all he knew about men: their passion, their fierceness, even their willingness to kill to protect their own. Black dots danced before his eyes, mocking his efforts. His vision narrowed to focus on a single acorn, then to a tiny nub on its cap. The pain receded and Cuillon surrendered to the darkness.

  He could feel his heart beating. He could hear the rasp of his breath and see light behind his closed eyelids and taste sour bile in his mouth. So he must be alive.

  Darak opened his eyes and stared up into a golden sky, studded with puffy, pink clouds. He sat up slowly and peered inside his tunic. The sky-spear had left no mark. His fingers touched only a mat of springy hair and beneath it, firm, warm flesh. If not for the dull ache on each intake of breath, the attack might not have happened at all.

  He had no idea how long he had been unconscious. Long enough for the beach to become a narrow ravine. The light stained its walls gold; the few splotches of pink made it seem as if the clouds had made the rocks blush. Ordinary-looking trees clung to ledges and ordinary-looking birds roosted in their branches. Even if the ravine was an illusion, he breathed a quick prayer of thanks; he had never expected to find beauty in Chaos.

  Beautiful it might be, but dangerous, too. The walls of the ravine hemmed him in. If attacked, he would have to go forward or retreat down the steep slope. He was still trying to choose the better course when he glimpsed movement among the rocks.

  Maker, let it be Morgath.

  His gaze darted around the ravine, settling on two large boulders. He scrambled over loose rocks, smiling. This kind of danger he understood.

  He crouched down behind a tumbled rock pile, pulled his sling from his belt, and picked through the rubble at his feet until he found a smooth stone. With the walls of the ravine at his back and the boulders guarding his flanks, he’d be well protected.

  He glanced back up the ravine. Again, that tantalizing flicker of motion, as if the Watchers of the First Forest had been transported to Chaos. He caught a brief glimpse of a figure before it disappeared behind a boulder. Too far away to make out its identity.

  He cradled the sling between loose fingers, waiting. His breathing slowed. The familiar calm stole over him, contrasting with the bloodlust that sang through his body.

  The figure emerged again. He searched eagerly for Yeorna’s golden hair and her long green robe, but it was a man who strode over the shifting pebbles with an easy, eerie grace. Not a man, he realized, but the same sort of spirit he had seen in the bog. No wonder he’d had such difficulty spotting him.

  He followed the spirit-man with his eyes, wondering if he should reveal himself. He might know where the Oak was; he might have seen Cuillon. Still, the flower had looked harmless and it had tried to bite off his hand. His sling would be no defense; the rock would pass right through the creature, just as his spear had sliced through the man in the bog.

  Frustration raged through him. As if the spirit-man could sense it, he stopped. His head slowly turned.

  The stone fell from Darak’s fingers. He tried to rise, but his legs wouldn’t obey. Bracing himself against a boulder, he pushed himself upright and stumbled down the slope.

  Two neat braids framed the lined face. The tunic hung on his wasted frame. The gray eyes widened as he drew near, but the fleeting expression of shock gave way to the familiar impassivity.

  Darak wet his lips, forcing them to shape the words.

  “Hello, Father.”

  Chapter 37

  OF ALL THE ILLUSIONS Chaos had offered, this was the most monstrous. His father stared at him, the rocks of the ravine clearly visible through his body. All Darak could do was stare back, waiting for him to change into something—a beast or a bird or one of the grotesque trees that had screamed at him for help.

  His father glanced up and down the ravine. “This place is dangerous. Come.” He headed down the ravine without a backward glance. Then he knew it was truly his father, as cold and distant after death as he had been in life. He wanted to shout at that rigid back that he knew the position was dangerous, that he’d been choosing the best direction. Only his concern that he would sound like a whining child kept him silent. Instead, he trotted after his father, relegated once again to the role of obedient son.

  Eleven years since his father had died—and all he could offer his firstborn son was an implicit criticism for lingering in the ravine. The gods only knew why he was trapped in this damnable place; certainly, his father would never tell him. One thing was clear enough: even Chaos lacked the power to soften him.

  How could his mother have loved this man? She had always been the heart of their family. When he was tired or sad—“broody,” his mam called it—she always seemed to sense it. She would put down her mending and lay her hand on the back of his neck and say, “Rest a bit.” And he would lay his head against her hip and she’d hum to him and stroke his hair. It always seemed that nothing could ever hurt him then, not even his father’s silent disapp
roval.

  She had a temper, though. Quick to smile, just as quick to anger, she could blister you with her tongue as surely as his father could with his belt. A reluctant smile tugged at his lips, remembering how she’d puff up like a grouse when she started in on one of her lectures. But every lecture always ended with a fierce hug and a smile that told you she loved you anyway, even if you had ruined the tunic it had taken her a moon to sew, or spilled the entire flask of elderberry wine she was saving for the harvest feast.

  Griane was like that, too.

  His smile faded. Where was she? By now, Fellgair must have told her of their bargain. He could imagine her reaction: the quick toss of her braid, the defiant tilt of that pointed chin. Only the trembling of her lips would betray the hurt, the awful sense of abandonment. And all for nothing. Fellgair had broken his promise and Cuillon was somewhere in Chaos, alone and wounded.

  Perhaps his father could help him find Cuillon as well as Tinnean and the Oak. He might even know how a man with no magic could get them out of this place. He wanted to sit his father down and demand answers to all his questions, but some stubborn, angry, childish part of him refused to speak, lest his father suspect that he just wanted to snatch a moment’s rest.

  Only when the ravine dwindled to a few tumbled boulders did they stop. Darak sank down in the purple grass, too tired to keep up a pretense of strength. His father squatted a few feet away, watching him with those cool, gray eyes.

  Darak unstoppered his waterskin and took a deep pull; the lukewarm water tasted delicious. He held it out to his father who shook his head. “One of the advantages of being dead. You don’t get thirsty or hungry.” The smallest smile creased his face. “Or tired.” The smile faded as quickly as it had come. “When I first felt you—”