Leaves of Flame

by Joshua Palmatier

  Colin considered her intense gaze for a long moment, then said stiffly, “I haven’t told you everything—”

  “Ha!”

  “—but that does not mean that telling you will make anything clearer.”

  “It might help,” Eraeth murmured, removing the eggs from the fire and separating them onto three plates.“We’ve been on edge for the entire underground excursion, not knowing whether we can trust the dwarren, not knowing where we are headed or what we will fi nd when we get there.” He caught Colin’s gaze and lifted an eyebrow in rebuke. “It’s difficult to protect you when I don’t know what I’m to protect you from.”

  Colin shifted uncomfortably as he accepted the plate of eggs. He was willing to brush off Siobhaen’s complaints as an effort to gain information for the Order of Aielan, but if Eraeth also felt compromised. . . .

  He sighed.“If I knew for certain,I would have informed you. This is all I know:

  “Perhaps eight months ago, something—I assume Walter and the Wraiths—awakened a Well to the east. This Well has a reservoir of Lifeblood greater than any of the Wells we know of, so vast that the Faelehgre believe that it is the source of all of the Lifeblood across the continent.”

  “Why?” Siobhaen asked. “Why would they awaken this Well?”

  “It will expand the territory that the Shadows can hunt extensively, perhaps as far south as Yhnar, or further.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense.There aren’t many humans down that far, and no one has traveled or settled in the Flats or the Thalloran Wasteland. There must be another reason to awaken the Well.”

  “Such as?” Colin wondered if Siobhaen would answer, wondered if she knew something she’d learned from Lotaern or the Order, perhaps unwittingly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what the Wraiths and the sukrael want.”

  Both Colin and Eraeth shared a glance. She’d answered too quickly to be lying.“The Shadows want freedom,”Colin said, rubbing his eyes. He’d just rested, but he already felt tired.“They were trapped near theWell andTerra’nor for so long their only goal is to escape it so they can feed. You saw their hunger in the years after the Wells were awakened.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Siobhaen said. “I was not born until after the Winter Tree was planted. But that is what the sukrael want. What of the Wraiths? What of this Walter who leads them?”

  Colin frowned. Walter wants to kill me, he nearly said, but stopped himself. It had to be more than that. But what did Walter want? He knew what the bully who had beat him in Portstown had wanted: the attentions of his father, Sartori, as well as his respect. That boy had gone on the expedition that had ultimately claimed the lives of everyone Colin cared about, so that Walter could prove himself to his father.

  But Walter’s father was dead. He would never find the acceptance he’d craved as a boy, would never be the Proprietor of Portstown, the predecessor of what was now a GreatLord. Was that what Walter strove for now? Power? Did he want to rule as his father had?

  Or did Walter’s wishes no longer matter? Had he been tainted by the Lifeblood to such an extent that the Shadows and their goals were all that mattered now?

  Colin shuddered at the thought and unconsciously clutched at his own arm and the marked skin beneath his shirt, an empty pit opening in his stomach.

  “The Seasonal Trees,” Eraeth said suddenly, dragging Colin away from his thoughts. The Protector glanced between both of them. “You asked what the sukrael and the Wraiths want. You say they want freedom to roam the land and feed. The only things stopping them now are the Seasonal Trees. They want to eliminate them.”

  “Can they do that with a new Well?” Siobhaen asked.

  Colin bowed his head, staring into the fire, brow creased in thought. “I’m not certain. The Lifeblood and the Trees have never appeared to interact with one another in any way.” Except that was a lie. In order to create the Trees, he had used the Lifeblood to give their seeds strength, in order to augment their powers so that it would spread across the lands of the three races to protect them, and to make certain the Trees would last for hundreds of years. The Lifeblood was an inherent part of the Trees’ power.

  He looked up.“But it’s possible.The Trees appeared unaffected when I checked with the Winter Tree in Caercaern, but I will look again once we reach the Confluence.”

  “How?” Siobhaen asked.

  “I’ll use the Summer Tree.”

  At the front of the dwarren encampment, drums sounded and the dwarren began to stir, tents collapsing as they began packing, fires doused with water from the river cutting down the center of the round cavern they’d chosen as a rest area. Colin glanced down at his eggs. He hadn’t had a chance to eat. Both Siobhaen and Eraeth were nearly done.

  Siobhaen caught his arm. “What else? What did you learn from the shamans?”

  “The Faelehgre told me to find the Well and do whatever was necessary to find balance again. None of the head shamans know anything of the Source. They only know the Wraiths and the rest of the creatures of the Turning have been gathering in the Thalloran Wasteland, creating an army,one to rival all of the races—dwarren,Alvritshai,and human—combined. They think that the awakening of the Well is a sign that their armies are ready to begin seizing control of all of Wrath Suvane. But it’s all speculation.”

  “What do you think?”

  Colin paused, then said quietly, “I think the dwarren are correct. They have prepared for the Turning their entire lives.”

  All around them, the dwarren were smoothly and efficiently breaking camp. None of the fires remained, all of the tents were down, and the gaezels were already being spread throughout the group.

  “Eat,” Eraeth said, nudging Colin’s plate of eggs. “We’ll get the horses and pack our tents.”

  Without waiting for a response, he poured a bucket of water onto the fire, smoke and steam rushing upward. Colin began shoveling the eggs into his mouth as Siobhaen headed for the horses.They’d learned from experience that when the dwarren were ready to depart, they wouldn’t stop to wait for the human or the Alvritshai to catch up.

  The two Alvritshai had their gear ready by the time Colin finished his breakfast; Eraeth washed the plate clean in the river and stuffed it into one of the saddlebags. The pounding rhythm that signaled the dwarren to move out came a moment before Colin swung himself up into the saddle.

  Then they were riding, the dwarren leading them through one of three possible branches from the room, none of them markedly different from the others. As soon as they entered the tunnel, Colin turned his attention to what Eraeth had suggested, that the Wraiths were using this new Well to affect the Seasonal Trees. He had sensed nothing when he checked the Winter Tree in Caercaern, but he didn’t think the Well had been awakened long before that. And from what he had discovered using the Well in the White Wastes, the newly awakened Well in the east was still drawing Lifeblood from the reservoir beneath it. It was still gaining in power and strength. The Wraiths may not have attempted to use it to affect the Trees yet.

  But the more he thought about whether it could affect the Trees, the more uneasy he felt.

  He needed to see the Summer Tree, needed to touch it as he’d done with the Winter Tree in Caercaern.

  They heard the Confluence before they saw it, a slow roar beginning to build beneath the sound of the gaezels’ hooves against the stone of the tunnel. The roar grew, until it thundered through the tunnel, shuddering against Colin’s skin and shivering deeper in his bones. When the noise had reached an unbearable pitch, the tunnel suddenly ended.

  Colin had been to the Confluence before, but the immense cavern still took his breath away as the dwarren army spilled out of the corridor and down the short ramp to the main floor. To the north, cascades of water fell from the heights of the rock wall, over a hundred streams and rivers converging on this one location, spilling down from the rock watershed in a torrent. Mist rose from the falls, glowing with the pale green luminescence of the moss and alg
ae that coated the damp, exposed rock around them and from the soft red light coming from the center of the chamber. There, the immense stone floor fell away in two short circular tiers to a red-tinged lake—the Sacred Waters of the dwarren.The roar of the churning water was deafening,but as the column of dwarren raced across the vast open area, a trick of the architecture of the cavern deadened it to a bearable level.

  Colin felt dwarfed by the immensity of the room—if it could be called a room. Massive arches, thicker than the boles of the most ancient trees he’d seen in the heart of the Ostraell, curved up from the sides of the cavern, terminating in a huge circle of stone that formed the apex of the dome. Chunks of that stone had crumbled and fallen away over time, the gaps in the flowing architecture glaring, but the structure had withstood the ages well.

  To the right of the massive falls, the dwarren had carved out rooms between the pillars and arches. Hundreds of dwarren were gathered along the massive wall and the tiers that led up to its base, yet beneath them, on the floor that surrounded the lake, there were thousands more. Tents riddled the area, dwarren in the armor of Riders milling about, their gaezels corralled off to one side. Others wove among the groups, dressed in the everyday garb of the dwarren, distributing food and blankets. It appeared that another group had arrived shortly before them, their gaezels only now being taken to the main stabling area. The leaders of that group were greeting the Cochen and the Archon, the head shaman easy to pick out of the crowd due to his massive feather headdress.

  Colin scanned the bed of activity, taking it all in as the column of dwarren headed directly toward the Cochen and Archon, drums announcing their arrival, but his attention shifted almost immediately to the right of the falls, toward the Summer Tree. It had been planted in the middle of the tiers, the shaft of the seedling he’d brought slammed down into the stone of the cavern’s floor much as he had done with the Winter Tree’s seed in the marketplace in Caercaern. Its roots had cracked the stone as they burrowed and climbed down the tiers, the bole of the tree shooting skyward, although there was no sky for it to fi nd. It had branched almost immediately, spreading outward rather than into the heights, more rounded than the Winter Tree, like a sycamore or oak. Its leaves were the darkened green of summer, as wide and flat as those of the Winter Tree, but not rounded. These leaves came in groups of three and like the oak were serrated. They rippled in a breeze generated by the falls, revealing the silvered undersides in flashes, like reflected sunlight on water.

  Colin searched for signs that the Tree was failing, but saw nothing. Beneath the branches, nestled within the giant root system that trailed all the way down to the Confluence, he could see where the dwarren had set lanterns in stone bowls. The light was reflected from the walls of the cavern, providing more illumination than could have been generated solely by the lanterns. A few of the dwarren shamans sat among the roots, kneeling in contemplation or prayer, or tending to the Tree’s needs.

  A shout tore Colin’s attention back to the Riders. The column slowed as the three clan chiefs and the three head shamans pulled away to meet with the Cochen and Archon. Colin searched the dwarren already encamped on the tiers, seeking out clan symbols, trying to gauge how many of the clans had already arrived.

  He was shocked at how many dwarren had gathered.

  “There are approximately ten thousand dwarren in the encampment,” Eraeth said.

  “And there are two clans not represented,” Colin added. “I see no groups of Riders from Painted Sands or Broken Waters.”

  “Which means what?” Siobhaen asked. The awe of seeing the Confluence for the first time had not yet faded from her face.

  “It means that there will be more dwarren joining us shortly. And that I may have time to check the Summer Tree before the true Gathering begins.” He glanced back toward the Tree, distracted.

  “Quotl is attempting to catch your attention,” Eraeth said.

  Colin swung around to fi nd the elder head shaman frowning in his direction. He nodded toward Colin.

  Colin sighed. He wanted to know what had caused the dwarren to call such a large Gathering, but the need to verify that the Summer Tree still held was more pressing.“Follow me.”

  He nudged his horse forward, the ranks of dwarren parting for him and the two Alvritshai. As they reached the front of the column, a drum sounded and the entire group broke, scattering toward an empty section of the encampment, bags and pouches already being removed from their gaezels. Dwarren rushed forward to seize the animals’ reins and lead them off to be scrubbed down, combed, and fed.

  The Cochen and Archon quieted as Colin and the Alvritshai drew close and dismounted, all of the dwarren considering them with narrowed eyes and taut faces. The Cochen had scars down one side of his face, emphasized by the angle of the chains that draped from the ring in his nose to his ear. Glancing at the intricate beading of his beard, Colin could tell it came from surviving a lion attack when he was younger. The scars made him appear more dangerous and brutal than the other dwarren clan chiefs, which was likely why he’d been chosen as the Cochen.

  The Archon appeared older than Quotl, thin and frail in comparison to the Cochen’s brusque stature, although Colin could sense the power the Archon commanded. He carried the scepter of the shamans, resting his weight upon it like a walking stick. He inclined his head toward Colin, but cast a glare at Eraeth and Siobhaen.

  “Clan Chief Oraju of the Red Sea, Cochen of this Gathering, and Archon Kimannen of Claw Lake,” Quotl said as introduction.“I present the Shadowed One,and his two Alvritshai companions.”

  “You have come to warn us,” the Archon said, “but you are too late. It has already begun.”

  Oraju glanced toward the rest of the clan chiefs and shamans, but answered as if the Archon had not spoken. “We are honored to have you here for this Gathering, Shadowed One. I hope that you will help us decide the right course of action.”

  The Archon snorted. “Our actions have already been decided, by Ilacqua and the actions of the elloktu! We must act now, before it is too late!”

  The clan chiefs shifted awkwardly, not daring to look at the Archon, but Quotl met Colin’s gaze. “The Archon speaks truly. Ilacqua will guide us through this Turning, as he has through all of the Turnings before.” He turned to the Cochen. “Are we ready to call the Gathering?”

  Oraju shook his head. “We wait for Clan Chief Asazi, of Broken Waters.”

  “What of Painted Sands?”Colin interrupted.“I don’t see their Riders here.”

  Oraju made a sound deep in his chest. “Clan Chief Corranu cannot attend the Gathering. It is news from Painted Sands that has caused the Gathering in the first place. But that should be discussed once we have all gathered beneath the eye of Ilacqua. Clan Chief Asazi and the rest of the Broken Waters Riders should be arriving shortly. We will Gather tonight.” He turned toward the Archon. “Archon Kimannen, prepare the keeva.”

  The Archon nodded and the cluster of clan chiefs and shamans scattered, the Cochen heading off toward the cliff dwellings, Tarramic and the rest of the clan chiefs toward the encampments to one side. The shamans trailed after Kimannen.

  Quotl remained behind, turning to Colin as soon as the others had moved beyond hearing.“The Cochen did not tell us everything—he’ll explain why the Gathering was called tonight—but he did say that there is a force gathering in the Thalloran Wastelands near the edge of Painted Sands land. Corranu has sent word of what he has seen, and he has gathered his Riders to meet this army.”

  “Which army?” Eraeth said. “No one lives in the wasteland to the east.”

  Quotl shook his head, lips a thin line. “The Cochen did not say.”

  “And what of the occumaen—the Eyes of Septimic? Did he mention those or the unnatural storms caused by the unbalancing of the Wells?”

  “He mentioned neither.”

  “I have news on both, but I need to touch the Summer Tree to verify why the Wells were unbalanced.”

  Quotl pursed hi
s lips in consternation and fl icked a glance toward the retreating Archon. “Matters regarding the Summer Tree are sent to the Archon, and he has no respect for you or what you have done for us. I doubt he will let you near the Tree.”

  Colin felt a moment of annoyance, followed by defiance. The Archon could not stop him from seeking out the Tree. He was Shaeveran, the Shadowed One.

  But then Quotl turned back, a hint of a wicked smile in his aged eyes.“However,I think the Archon will be busy at the keeva. Come. I will escort you to the Tree.”

  “Won’t you be needed to prepare the keeva?” Eraeth asked.

  Quotl chuckled.“The Archon and I have never seen eye to eye. He will not miss my presence.”

  The head shaman motioned for a few of the dwarren to take the horses, the lucky few approaching the animals with trepidation. As they led the animals away, three dwarren to each horse, Quotl headed around the edge of the Sacred Waters toward the Summer Tree. All three non-dwarren traded glances, then scrambled to keep up.

  “He moves fast,”Eraeth grumbled,“for one of the dwarren.”

  They skirted the lake, crossing over numerous bridges where the water was being channeled and siphoned off to form smaller pools for dwarren use. At one such bridge, its arch higher than many of the others, Siobhaen gasped and pointed down toward the center of the lake, moving to the railing at the edge.

  “There’s something in the Blood of Aielan,” she said, “something in the water’s depths.”

  Eraeth shot Colin a questioning gaze, but when he didn’t answer, the Protector moved to the railing beside Siobhaen. They both stared at the depths for a long moment. Colin moved up behind them.

  “It looks like some kind of reddish light,” Siobhaen said. “As if there were a fire under the water.”

  “No.” Eraeth shook his head. “There are multiple rings of fire, all of them swinging around a central sphere, some faster than others. The sphere in the center is what’s glowing.”