by Marc Secchia
Kevin’s eyebrows crawled toward his unmanageable mop of carroty curls. The rest of the note was written in Ancient Dryadic script, which one of his Unicorn tutors had shown him. The script, comprised of stylised vines and flowers, leaves and branches, was unmistakable. It was used for secret communication by the Dryads, he had learned. No other creature could interpret the language, not even the Unicorns.
He could not read another word.
No, his eyes jumped to the end. At the bottom, in miniscule handwriting, was an additional note penned by the Queen herself.
You will ensure the Rites of Aliddiune come to pass, my niece, Sister and Seer. And this is why. Your mother was caught before she went too far. She was caught and brought back to the brink of life by the master healer Zinfandir, for she was pregnant with you. But she balked. She did not desire life. She became dyalithi, a woodbound spirit. I can show you that tree–only do as you are bid, noble Alliathiune, for the sake of our Mother Forest, and I will reunite you with your mother.
Blackmail? Kevin’s fingers froze on the tiny curl of reed paper. Why would the Queen need to blackmail her niece … quick! Alliathiune had glanced over to him. She spotted the snowy owl.
Deftly, for once in his life, Kevin rolled up the paper. He schooled his expression into neutrality, using all the tricks he had been forced to learn over the years. As Alliathiune approached, he held it out on his palm. “Look, Alliathiune, the Queen sent a message,” he said. “It’s for you, I assume.”
And as she reached out, she gave him a searching look. “Have you read it?”
“I don’t pry,” he lied, stiffly. “Isn’t that the Queen’s message owl?”
“Yes.” As Alliathiune bent to read the paper, Kevin watched her narrowly. The Dryad first flushed, and then turned so deathly pale, all over, that he could scarcely make out the Dryadic patterns on her limbs.
He saw the terrible, costly effort she made at self-control. He sensed her magic flare up. Her fingers trembled as she read through to the end.
Alliathiune dropped her gaze, letting her hair slide forward to cover her face. “It’s a personal note from the Queen,” she muttered. “Encouragement.”
But to Kevin’s heightened senses, a waterfall of tears roared behind her words. He would not prolong her agony. If she had reason to lie–and he suspected she at least one shocking reason to lie–then he would simply have to wait. Another piece of the puzzle, Jenkins. Find the pattern. Work it out. Define and arrange the possibilities, tease out the motivation, find the root cause … he set the whole of his mind to work on this problem.
“Very well,” he replied, slipping his arm into the crook of her elbow. Her arm hung like a dead thing. “Look, the others are preparing to leave. Walk with me a space.”
And the Dryad, head down, adrift in another world, allowed Kevin to lead her on as though she had lost the will to live.
* * * *
Hunter’s lithe shadow led the company down into Broadleaf Valley.
After a tricky descent of nearly half a mile, the trail meandered with deceptive gentleness between large, moss- and lichen-encrusted boulders down between parallel ridges deeper into the mist-shrouded valley. It was incongruous on a gloriously sunny afternoon to look out over a carpet of mist punctured with rough granite spires, trying to imagine what must lie beneath. Despite Indomalion’s brilliance there was little warmth in the air, and the cool, gentle breeze brought smells of rotting foliage and damp, fertile soil drifting up to their nostrils. The barren character of the heights changed swiftly into giant, lush ferns, which hid a cornucopia of noisy bird and insect life, and so tall that even the Lurk had no need to bow his head beneath their spreading boughs.
They made camp later in a sandy hollow near a trickling waterfall, which suited Snatcher down to the ground. He settled himself so that the flow landed on his shoulders, and blinked steadily at Kevin’s measuring look.
“Are you not yet accustomed to the mores of swamp-dwellers, good Kevin?” he asked.
“You’ll get plenty moisture below,” Amadorn grunted. “I hope this mist lifts, however–it’ll be difficult to see the Huropods otherwise. We’ll want to keep a respectful distance lower down in the valley.”
Kevin asked, “What’s the plan once we reach Shadowmoon Keep?”
“We’ll find our way to the dungeons, as Amberthurn said,” grated the Witch. She had a bad cold, and her thin nose was a red spike between her pinched cheeks. It had further soured her habitually foul mood. “I’m reading danger in the aether. We should post a strong guard this darktime.”
“Indeed?” asked Amadorn. “You have not expressed such sentiments before, good Witch.”
“Since the darkling creatures attacked us on that island, good Druid, I have kept a more careful watch of such aspects. I had foolishly assumed our route and goal would take us beyond the reach of the Dark Apprentice–which he has amply disproved, to our enduring expense.” She sniffed as if to indicate that this oversight would not be repeated. “I should clarify, however, that the danger seems to be concentrated some distance yonder. I only wish not to be surprised a second time.”
Amadorn picked something out of his beard and flicked it away from him. “That’s the direction Anurmar Gorge takes out of the valley.”
“I hate surprises,” Akê-Akê interjected, carefully blowing sparks onto tinder to make a fire. “Like that dark creature which followed us. The way that wooden stockade just crumbled into dust–I can’t get it out of my mind. Who knows when it will next appear?”
Kevin pulled his right boot off with a groan. “What I hate is blisters–great, puffy, painful blisters the size of my thumb.”
“The Witch is right,” Alliathiune said softly. “We should guard ourselves more carefully, and try to make a still mirror to the Council, following those instructions we received last week.”
“Aye.”
“But our first task is to avoid being flattened or eaten–”
“Piffle and child’s play,” said Amadorn. “I have already prepared the spell. Have we seen a single Megaroach yet?”
“No, and I don’t want to, thank you very much.”
Akê-Akê sniffed, “Why don’t you make yourself useful and chop some greens for the stew-pot, good Kevin?”
“I’ll probably chop my fingers off.”
“My, aren’t we just a ray of sunshine?”
“Water off a duck’s back!” He gave the Faun a supercilious smile. “Don’t forget you are my sworn bondservant, you boorish, unwashed rapscallion!”
“By the Well!” Akê-Akê positively gurgled with laughter. “Is the outlander testing his skills in the art of verbal thrust and parry? This is a remarkable moment!”
“Not that remarkable,” muttered Kevin, chopping assiduously, but he reacted sharply when Akê-Akê clapped him on the shoulder. “Careful!”
“What, spotted a vicious beetle, good outlander, or a hairy, noxious caterpillar?”
“Like this one?” said Alliathiune, scooping up a palm-sized dung-beetle and depositing it at Kevin’s feet.
Kevin shrieked and fell backwards off the boulder he had been perching on. The vegetables flew everywhere–onto his shirt, in his hair, stuck to his face. The Faun hooted with laughter.
He threw Alliathiune a sulky glare. “You are perfectly beastly!”
She shooed the beetle along with her hands. “I was just wondering if you had overcome your fear of crawling things.”
“Ha and double ha with knobs on. I refuse to be the subject of your little experiments.”
“Double ha with knobs on?”
“You’d think my English would be perfectly intelligible, even to backwoods primitives like yourselves.”
“But you are speaking Standard Driadornese, admittedly with an appalling foreign accent.”
“Nobody asked for your opinion, Akê-Akê!”
Shortly the conversation wound into less acrimonious paths, and thence to a discussion of the way and the dangers a
head. Amadorn related a couple of stories from his homeland, which Akê-Akê followed with a traditional Faunish rendition of how the world was made. But eyelids were growing heavy following a hard lighttime’s climbing and descent.
“I will take watch,” purred Hunter, her Cat eyes gleaming in the dim firelight.
Kevin stopped where Alliathiune had curled herself up. If he was not mistaken, she was crying, but she stopped the instant she heard his soft footfall.
“I wondered if you’d like to carry this for a while,” he said, putting Zephyr’s horn next to her head. “He was your friend first, and I know you miss him awfully.”
After a long silence, she sniffed and said, “I do, good Kevin. Thank you.”
“I thought you’d want to rest in a tree, Alliathiune. You should before we reach Anurmar Gorge.”
“This darktime, I feel more comfortable here,” she replied. “Rest in the Mother’s bosom, good outlander. And … thank you for walking with me this lighttime. I don’t know what I’d do without a friend like you.”
Friends only–that old chestnut? Kevin grimaced in the darkness. “You rest well too, Alliathiune.”
When he settled down, his eyes remained open a very long time, staring up through the dense boughs overhanging their campsite at the myriad stars as though he sought to read the answers to the mysteries of life there, and his mind restlessly covered and re-covered all that he knew of the Forest and its Blight. There had to be a solution. He knew it in his bones. He must not fail.
But his thoughts kept returning to that note. Why should the Dryad Queen resort to blackmail? The need to write in Ancient Dryadic … what new secret was this? What terrible thing had happened to lead her mother to attempt suicide even when she was pregnant with Alliathiune? And who was her father–if she had one?
One thing was for certain, the Dryad was desperately unhappy.
* * * *
Kevin slithered and slid down the muddy trail, stripping the leaves off ferns as he fell, yelping each time he bounced off a root or a rock. Akê-Akê’s swift grab found only air–sodden, rain-slashed air–but Snatcher was quicker and snagged a flailing ankle as the Human turned a complete cartwheel over the last few feet.
He dangled Kevin upside-down as easily as one would dandle an infant. “Take care, good Kevin. The trail is treacherous for dry-landers this lighttime.”
“I couldn’t get any wetter, thankfully. Would you mind awfully putting me the right way up, old man? The blood’s rushing to my head and my lunch is making a pressing case for a swift reappearance.”
“At once.”
“I’m just the clumsiest two left-footed ninny the world has ever seen.”
“Try having three left feet,” said Amadorn, slipping to a stop beside them with the aid of his walking-stick. “Foul weather, eh, Snatcher?”
The Lurk flicked his nictitating membranes myopically. “As lovely as it gets, good Druid, short of sloughing through a nice deep swamp served by a similar torrent.”
“One may as well stand beneath a waterfall.”
“From my information, good outlander, we should before darktime reach a forested section, where we may take shelter beneath the great farwood trees and. That will bring welcome relief.” Amadorn eased his bowed legs with a weary sigh. “Be of good cheer. The trail should level out, and Hunter has shot a young deer for dinner. No vegetable stew for a few lighttimes at least.”
“Butchers!”
Kevin smiled at Alliathiune’s hiss from nearby. Talk about a militant vegetarian! Some of her beliefs remained non-negotiable, no matter how much joshing she received from her companions. Zephyr had always concurred, though, and been the mainstay of her support while he was still with them–and his own support, Kevin had realised, having himself leaned heavily on the Unicorn’s knowledge, support, and companionship. How he missed Zephyr! Where did Unicorns go when they ‘took to the horn’? Metaphysical nuances shading the practical consequence that, for all intents and purposes, he was dead, incommunicado, trapped without hope of … no, don’t be silly, Kevin. He didn’t honestly think he could rescue Zephyr when all the Unicorn scholarship of five thousand Leaven seasons had made zero progress on the issue?
Kevin, hope of the Unicorns? Ha.
Well, he hadn’t done so badly on the Blight so far, had he?
“A ripe haridol fruit for your thoughts, good Kevin?”
He startled, taking the proffered fruit automatically. It reminded him of apricot, only larger and sweeter. “Oh, Alliathiune, you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that!”
“I called your name twice!”
“Oh. Gosh, I guess I was deep in thought …”
“Were you thinking about Zephyr?”
“How did you know?”
Alliathiune took his arm in the Dryad way. “You silly man, you have been twiddling his horn in your fingers for the last turn. I’ve been watching.”
Kevin had recently discovered that he could forgive her any amount of teasing when she took his arm in just that way. He said, “You are far too intuitive for your own good, ‘Thooney. Here, it’s your turn.”
She stiffened, but took Zephyr’s horn nevertheless. “Humph. That’s what you called me at the Well!”
“Did I?”
An arch of her eyebrow spoke eloquently. The rest of her was sodden, her hair lying in flat hanks on her forehead and down her back, but the Dryad seemed unaffected by the rain. Kevin knew he looked like a half-drowned rat, but Akê-Akê had shown him how to wrap his effects in a waterproof selidish cloth, a Unicorn invention–at least his tome on wizardry would keep dry.
“I shall repent in sackcloth and ashes for a space of seven moons,” he groaned. “Please, I’ve shed enough tears of anguish over my stupidity to fill the Well several times over. You may rest assured that I harbour not a single licentious purpose regarding your person.”
Great Scott, and now he had fallen to telling casual untruths? Besotted, smitten, and hopeless as he was!
“Oh.” The Dryad tucked a damp hank of hair behind her ears. Kevin had the distinct impression he had disappointed her. “Good Kevin, why are you studying magic with the Faun Loremaster?”
“And with the Druid, and Snatcher–and you, if you’d allow,” he replied. “But not the Witch, And you can just wipe that incredulous expression off your face. I have my reasons–lofty High Wizard reasons, my dear Dryad.”
“Good outlander, I am not your dear–”
“I’ll be the judge of my heart!” Kevin burst out, and then clamped his jaw shut in horror. Alliathiune bit her lip and looked into the surrounding vegetation, where a grey mole-rat the size of large dog was industriously digging up a tuber. “And I am Kevin,” he growled, “not some bizarre carrot-haired outlander from Earth. Agreed? You ought to know me well enough by now.”
Alliathiune laughed, squeezing his arm, “By the Hills, I like this Kevin! He who burbles in Lurkish, and fears not to sup with demon-conjuring Faun Loremasters.”
“I refuse to take your bait.”
“But why, Kevin? Isn’t one branch of magic enough to struggle with, rather than examining a whole Forest? You’ve been at this ever since we left the Dragon-Magus’ lair.”
“Because apparently, my power depends on the magic of others,” he replied. Yes, he was ‘struggling’ and should not bristle at the truth! “If I don’t understand what they’re doing, I fail and end up with a blue hand, for example. My nature is to synthesize knowledge from many domains–and did you realise how intimately magic is associated with language? Each magic-capable race uses their own language, which is the unique carrier of meaning, and uniquely expressed with all sort of additional context. Language describes culture and thinking patterns and how a creature even defines their being, all in one wrapper. Lurkish magic would simply not function in Standard Driadornese. If we are to defeat the Dark Apprentice, I need to know more. Much more.”
“You’re so intense sometimes.”
“Says she who can’t sto
p herself ministering to every plant and animal we pass? Even in the midst of the Utharian wilds, no person for a hundred leagues–”
“Nature doesn’t have to be useful to you Humans, or subjugated by Humans,” Alliathiune said. “It is enough that it is.”
Not only unhappy, Kevin thought, but downright cantankerous. Something was eating her up from the inside.
At last the trail levelled out, so now they were able to walk forward through ankle-deep mud and not slither downward in the steady downpour. Ground-dwelling quails and brilliant limmicks scattered into the thick undergrowth at their passing, and tiny hummingbirds feasted on the plentiful tropical flowers that splashed colour here and there amongst the ubiquitous bushes and ferns. Kevin wondered if these hummingbirds would also feed the Dryad nectar, as he had seen them do back near the Utharian Wet–to his astonishment.
“Are you quite certain you aren’t a Tomalia in disguise?”
“Perfectly,” he grinned.
“But you haven’t asked me to teach you Dryadic.”
“Ahem. Hooliaa’än Dryaduu-ish-loë, Alliathiune-têssi.”
The Dryad gave a gasp of laughter. “You crafty man–when did you learn that? And how? Your accent is perfect.”
Kevin bowed extravagantly. “At the Sacred Grove. My vowels are all wrong, but thank you anyway. Nine vowels plus five tones and a glottal stop? Ridiculous language.”
“Don’t forget there are four different clicks, and seventeen trills,” Alliathiune retorted, smugly.
“Seventeen trills? No wonder you sound like a bunch of chattering sparrows all the time.”
He earned himself a smack for this sally.
He continued, “I was wondering what happens to Unicorns when they ‘take to the horn’, my decorative Forest spirit, for I find it illogical and unjust that so many creatures of their noble race should remain lost, displayed like some grotesque mummery in the Ardüinthäl. I miss him terribly. I’d hate to think Zephyr might end up there one lighttime, forgotten and ignored.” His sigh was loud enough to make Snatcher, striding ahead of them, glance back over his shoulder. “I could not help but wonder in such a vainglorious spate of self-aggrandisement that would make a person sick, that since I enjoyed some small accomplishment in the matter of the Blight I might turn my thoughts to the plight of the lost Unicorns, and thereby … well! I may as well scream into a tornado for all the difference it would make. If the Unicorn scholars cannot raise their kin to life, what hope have I, a stupid barbarian outlander with no appreciation of the Forest?”
