by Cindy Dees
“Heartstones are used for resurrection, right?” he asked. He felt smart for being able to toss out that tidbit.
“When a spirit absorbs a stone’s magic, it gains enough strength to re-form body and inhabit it.”
“An entirely new body?” he asked, shocked.
She nodded. “No matter how badly injured before death, a whole and healthy new body form, assuming spirit strong enough to journey back through stone—with guidance of healer trained how to use it, of course. Not all spirits come back, though.”
“Why not?”
“We not know for sure.”
“How does a Heartstone work?”
She shrugged. “Stone make light visible in spirit realm. If spirit see it, spirit can go to it. Draw energy from it to resurrect.”
He frowned. “What is it?”
“Magical stone. Some say sentient.”
“If it’s sentient, why would it allow spirits to drain energy from it for resurrections?”
Rosana laughed. “Now you know great mystery of Heartstones. Emperor give large kingdom to anyone who answer question, I expect. He love to cast off Heart and force common people to depend on him alone for healing and resurrection.”
Now, that was outright treason. “Have a care what you say,” Will muttered sharply under his breath. “Such words will get you killed or worse!”
Rosana glanced up at him from under her thick eyelashes. “You not tell on me, would you?”
His breath caught in his throat and he shook his head, struck dumb by her mild flirtation. He eyed the lime green goop clinging to the rim of the solvent bottle she unstoppered and managed to choke out, “Do you know how to use that stuff?”
She grinned. “Easy as pie. You pour over thing you unstick. It reverse effect of all paste or glue. And no, I not know how it work, Curious Will.”
His mother called him that sometimes. However, at the moment he was distinctly uncurious to find out what that green mess would feel like against his skin. If the horrible pain when the wood disk had attached to him was any indication, this was going to burn like dragon’s breath. Not only did he dread the pain, but moreover, he had no desire to whimper like a babe in front of Rosana.
“Come sit near fire where I see better,” she ordered briskly. “And open shirt more.”
He did as she directed with trepidation, steeling himself against what was to come. He was gratified, however, to see her gaze drink in his muscular chest. Cutting and hauling timber for the Hickory Hollow lumberjacks kept most of the young men there in excellent condition. And then there had been the endless chores Ty had made Will do over and over.
Carefully, she poured some of the green substance over the disk, catching the excess in a cloth she held below it. Other than being faintly cold against his skin, the solvent felt like nothing more than syrup dripping down his chest.
“See if it pry loose now,” she directed.
He reached up and tried to pull it off.
Nothing.
He tried again, scraping his fingernails painfully at his skin in a vain attempt to gain purchase on the blasted disk. Again, nothing. It felt rooted to his body as if it had grown into him.
Rosana leaned back, staring down at the disk, confounded. “Never I see such thing. I think another healer must look at it.”
In short order every other healer in the house examined his chest and expressed interest in his problem. However, none of them had any solution to offer, and none of the others had dimples and smelled of vanilla.
Finally, the adept who had taken over running the house until a new patriarch could be appointed commented, “I think we’d better show this to the High Matriarch.”
Forthwith, Will and his gathered audience trooped upstairs to the same office he’d gone into when he first arrived in the building.
Lenora looked up in surprise as the lot of them tromped into her impromptu office. “What’s this?”
“We have a conundrum, High Matriarch,” the adept explained. “This boy has a strange affliction which none of us have been able to cure or even identify. We were hoping you might take a look.”
“By all means. If you were sick when arrived, you should have told me, young man. Riots notwithstanding, we are here to heal all who walk through our doors,” she said kindly.
By way of answer, Will pulled back his shirt, inured now to the idea of showing the wood disk to strangers. High Matriarch Lenora studied the disk as the other healers relayed everything that had been tried on it so far. And then she did an odd thing. She laid her palm directly on the disk, her fingertips cool on Will’s flesh around it, closed her eyes, and murmured a half-intelligible incant, something to do with detecting spirits.
Her eyes flew open, and she jerked her hand away from Will with a start. “Well then. I think I may have found the problem.”
Will looked at the healer expectantly.
“Yon disk of wood is sentient.”
CHAPTER
17
Raina expected to fall unconscious from exhaustion when she finally collapsed in one of Hyland’s guest beds, but she struggled to sleep, and when she did her dreams were restless.
She knew this place. The dryad grove where she and Cicero arrived in Dupree. But it was different, more … alive. A subliminal groaning filled the air as if the rowan trees were speaking with one another. In fact, when she looked more closely, they were. Small animals chattered back and forth, their language frustratingly just beyond her understanding.
And there were other creatures. Otherworldly ones, some monstrous and some beautiful. In her dream, she strolled around the margins of the grove under the great trees ringing the circle.
She passed a stand of heavy brush and was startled to hear a female voice emerge from the undergrowth. It said in perfectly understandable human speech, “What do you seek in this place, dreaming human?”
Was the unseen woman talking to her?
“Yes, I speak to you. What other dreaming human do you see in this place?”
“I do not understand.”
“You seem to understand me perfectly well. What do you seek?”
“Who are you?” Raina demanded.
A trill of laughter. “I am Rowan.”
“Where are you?”
“Why, right before you, of course, silly child.”
Raina blinked and, in a single closing and opening of her lids, was able to make out a face among the clustered leaves before her. It was almost as if the face were made of leaves, so perfectly did it blend in with the lush greenery around it.
“I see you!” Raina cried out in delight. Although why she was so delighted in her dream, she could not quite say.
The one named Rowan smiled beguilingly. “Tell me what you seek.”
She frowned. “I do not know what you mean.”
“Of course you do,” Rowan replied brightly. “We all know in our heart of hearts what we truly seek.”
“It’s a secret,” Raina whispered, finally understanding.
“But this is a dream,” Rowan whispered back. “Anything you say here will not leave this place or this dream. I can keep a secret. I keep many secrets.”
“Like what?”
The green-faced lady laughed. “If I told you they would not be secrets anymore!” Her emerald green gaze was beseeching. “Please tell me yours.”
Her voice was so pleasant, so enticing, that Raina had no desire to resist. “I seek great magic,” she confided.
“You have great magic. I sense it within you.”
“No, no. Bigger than what I have now.”
Rowan’s face fell. “Oh. I had hoped for something more special from the one who managed to wake me,” she murmured, disappointed.
“I woke you? How?”
“You woke my wand, of course.” The leaf-faced woman leaned a little closer. “You may keep that for a while, by the way. It’s mine, but you will need it, someday.”
“For what purpose?”
“I c
annot tell. It’s a secret,” the lady answered with a conspiratorial twinkle in her green eyes.
“The magic isn’t for me,” Raina explained, returning to their earlier conversation. “I need it to save someone else. My sister and … and my future daughters. And maybe my aunt if she’s still alive. But I fear she is not.”
“That’s better, then,” the leafy lady said encouragingly. “What kind of magic do you seek?”
“I’m not sure. I think it needs to be very old and very, very powerful.” Raina added hopefully, “Do you know anyone with that kind of magic?”
“I did once.”
“Who?” Raina asked eagerly.
“The Great Circle.”
“What is that?”
“Not a what. A who. They were the great tree lords of the forest.”
“What happened to them?”
The green-faced lady’s face grew unbearably sad. “They turned on one of their own. They did not understand that his anger and violence were a natural part of the cycle of life, and he hurt someone. They destroyed Bloodroot, but in so doing, they destroyed the balance and destroyed themselves. The Mythar was gone and was not there to fix the balance. The Great Circle is broken. No longer complete.”
“Oh, dear,” dreaming Raina sighed. Then she brightened, saying, “I have heard of this Mythar. Is he still alive? Who is he exactly?”
A gentle laugh. “He is … was … the lord of all the nature guardians.”
“Where can I find him?”
“He is lost. We cannot find him no matter where we look.”
“Where did you lose him?” Raina asked curiously.
“He used to visit the Great Circle sometimes. We saw him there, mostly. Perhaps that is where we lost him.”
“Where did the Great Circle live?”
“They liked the Forest of Thorns, the Wylde Wood, and the White Wood.”
“Is the Mythar dead?”
“We do not believe so. He has gone beyond us, though. Perhaps he is with his mother.”
“You mean beyond the Veil, in the Void, where the permanently dead go?”
“No, no!” Rowan snapped a little irritably. “With his mother, the Green Lady.”
Raina was starting to feel a little exasperated. “And who is she?”
“She is a what, not a who,” Rowan replied with infuriating good cheer. “She is the life in everything around us. The breath in our lungs, the renewal in rain, the birth of new life in seeds, the death in winter’s frost.”
“So the Mythar is dead, and has returned to nature instead of to the Void.”
Rowan shook her head emphatically in the negative. “We would sense him if he were with the Urth. We have lost him. We misplaced him.” She frowned prettily and added, “He had the magics of which you speak, too. Very old and very powerful. If you could find him for us, we would be very grateful. And we would ask him to share his magic with you.”
“Would he listen to you?” Raina asked curiously.
The green one looked offended. “I am a princess of the Green Court. What male does not listen to me? Even the Mythar is not entirely immune to my charms.”
For some reason, the spirits around the green-leaf-faced lady found that idea hilarious in the extreme. Laughter of every shape and sound rippled through the grove joyously, and even Rowan could not scowl for long and joined the laughter.
Raina drifted on that tide of happiness, wishing with all her heart never to wake and leave this magical place.
But she did wake up. Abruptly and disoriented. Little remained of her strange dream except an absolute certainty that she needed to find this Mythar, and that the place to start looking for him was in the Forest of Thorns.
* * *
Will stared in shock at High Matriarch Lenora. “It’s alive? A sliver of wood is alive? That’s absurd.”
“Mayhap,” Lenora replied, “but I sensed two spirits within you when I cast a spell of detecting spirits upon you. Unless you are already possessed by another and would like to tell us of it now, yon disk has a spirit.”
Will shook his head in disbelief. “As far as I know, I am not possessed. So how do we get it off me?”
“Well now. That could be a problem. When it attached to you, was there any discomfort?”
Will nodded warily.
“A lot of discomfort?”
Reluctantly, he nodded again.
She frowned. “As I feared. That thing may have already grown into you in some way.”
Will stared, dismayed. That did not sound good at all. “Now what?”
“Now you sleep. It is late, and my guess is that it will require ritual magic to remove that from you. I do not have the components or the scroll to cast such a magic here. Mayhap, the Mage’s Guild has them.”
“If I do not obtain this ritual?” Will asked cautiously. No way was he going back to the Mage’s Guild to ask for help.
“You may be stuck with it on your chest until you die and resurrect. Even then, it may not come loose, however. If it has attached to your spirit in some way, it could very well resurrect with you. It would help if we knew from whence it came.”
Great stars. How on Urth was he supposed to research where a random lizardman girl he had never seen before and would likely never see again had obtained this stupid hunk of wood? He had no desire to go traipsing around the Empire with this thing stuck to him!
The depth of how adrift he’d suddenly become washed over Will. He had no home, no family, no means of employment, no prospects. How was he supposed to pay to fix this problem, let alone supply himself and travel into the Forest of Thorns in search of a legend? He needed gold. Resources. Information. Hopelessness broke over him. Would he end up pressed into the Haelan legion or enslaved, or worse?
A commotion downstairs interrupted discussion among the healers of his interesting problem. An excited voice floated up the stairs announcing that Lord Justinius had stopped in to check out the Heart’s security.
Will looked over at Rosana questioningly. Who is Lord Justinius?
Her face lit up by way of answer. She grabbed his hand and bodily pulled him out of the office toward the stairs. “I never see him before,” she blurted, blushing. “Hurry. Come!”
“Who is he?” Will demanded as she dragged him down the stairs at a dangerously fast clip. “Is he a ritual caster?”
“He commands Royal Order of Sun. He work for Voice.”
“Voice? Who is that?”
“Voice lead entire Heart,” she explained impatiently. “And Lord Justinius—he battle caster, not ritual caster.”
They burst into the main room, or at least into the edge of it, for the place was suddenly crowded to bursting. A cadre of big, dangerous-looking men in the Royal Order of the Sun’s white tabards, decorated with red shields behind their heart and sun emblems, filled much of the common room. It appeared that every healer in the Heart had also crowded in, and commoners off the street jammed the remaining corners. Lord Justinius was the biggest of them all, a massively powerful warrior with dark hair going gray at the temples. His sword, shield, and armor glowed brightly with magic, as did his hands.
“Welcome, my lord Justinius!” the High Matriarch cried out in greeting. “To what do we owe this great honor?”
“We received tidings of trouble in the city. We came in from the field to check upon your safety and security.”
“All is well, here. We run somewhat low on supplies, but that is not unusual after a night like this.”
“And the Heartstone?”
One of Justinius’s knights piped up, “I have checked the locks. It is secure, my lord.”
“Thank you, Sir Christian.” Justinius turned back to the high matriarch. “I have heard rumors of a new healer in town. A girl of spectacular ability. Who is she?”
“Only new girl we’ve gotten the past few days is Novice Rosana. Where is she?”
Someone shoved her forward, but she was holding Will’s hand so tightly that he was dragged for
ward as well.
“How many life spells can you cast in a single day, Novice?” Lord Justinius asked her kindly enough.
“One, sir.”
His dark eyes flickered in disappointment, but he still smiled and nodded in approval. “Keep practicing, then. Your skills will grow quickly under High Matriarch Lenora’s tutelage.” To the high matriarch he murmured, “This is not her. Talk was a spirit arch-mage had come to Dupree.”
“An arch-mage? There hasn’t been one in my lifetime,” Lenora replied. “But I’ll certainly keep an eye out for one, my lord.”
“Excellent. I’m off, then. Back to what we were doing before news of the riots reached us. My men will, of course, share what scrolls and potions they can spare to see you through the next few days. Give her all the Delphi marked potions and scrolls you have. That batch is nearing its expiration date. Best to use it up here, where we know it will do some good before the magics drain away.”
The knights stepped forward one by one to empty their pouches. When they were done, the crowd of knights swept out of the Heart, and abruptly the building felt empty. Hollow. The day’s excitement and the strange malady Will had suffered on and off caught up with him of a sudden, and he was glad to curl up in a bunk in one of the alcoves lining the Heart’s common room.
He had barely laid his head on the thin, musty pillow, his eyes barely closed, when strange images began to dance in his head, more vivid than any normal dream, not quite hallucination, and not quite imagination.
The images were dark and violent. Some thinking part of him registered surprise that the battle his dreaming mind conjured was not that of Hickory Hollow. Rather, he saw a huge field, bordered on opposing sides by two great armies, one composed almost entirely of elves, the other made up of various greenskins. And trolls. Lots of trolls. The center of the greenskin line was dominated, though, by a regiment of orcs bristling with weapons. Orcs with red symbols that looked like outspread tree roots tattooed on their foreheads.
The two armies did not battle each other. Rather, all eyes were directed to the center of the field where two lone figures dueled. One an elf, the other a troll, the crowns upon their brows declaring them to be kings among their kind. The elf’s crown, predictably, was made of what looked like living green leaves edged in gold.
