by P. C. Cast
“Wow. Mama would have loved this.”
Moments later the litter was being pulled onto a wide platform by a man who looked like an older version of Nik. Beside him was a huge Shepherd whose face was eerily familiar. Rigel leaped out of the litter to greet the Shepherd. Nik took Mari’s hand, helping her onto the platform. Then, with a sense of joy that had her spirit lifting, he presented her to his father.
“Father, this is my friend, Mari. You already know her Shepherd, Rigel. Mari, I’d like to introduce you to my father, Sol, Leader and Sun Priest of the Tribe of the Trees.”
Mari wished she’d thought about what she was going to do when she met Nik’s father—or at least wished she’d asked Nik what she was supposed to do. Then she didn’t have any more time to be nervous because she was enveloped in the warmth of Sol’s hug.
“Welcome, Mari! You are so very, very welcome,” he said. Then he held her at arm’s length, looking into her eyes. “Thank you for my son’s life. That is a gift for which I will never be able to fully repay you, though I will try, Mari. I promise you I will try.”
Mari smiled up at him shyly. He was so tall! Though when she glanced at Nik she realized that he was actually taller than his father.
“You are welcome, Sun Priest,” she said awkwardly. “I’m glad Rigel led me to Nik, and I’ll be glad to help with his cousin, too.”
“Please call me Sol,” he said. Then his Shepherd approached her. “And this is Rigel’s sire, my Laru.”
Mari reached her hand out to the huge Shepherd, who sniffed it, and then licked her, wagging his tail happily. “You’re so handsome! And Rigel looks so much like you!” she said, then turned to Nik. “Is Rigel going to get this big?”
“Bigger, maybe. Don’t you think, Father?”
Sol smiled. “Your Rigel is bigger than Laru was at his age. He looks good, Mari. You’ve done well for him.”
“Thank you,” Mari said, and added, “I hope I can help Nik’s cousin.”
Sol’s smile slid from his face. “I hope you can help O’Bryan, too, but I’m afraid it may be too late. He fell asleep about midday and will not awaken.”
“Then we need to go to him—now.” Nik began to hurry toward one of the nearby nests, but Sol caught his arm.
“He’s not there, son. He’s been moved to the Transition nest.”
“He drank the monkshood?”
“Nikolas, lower your voice before we’re found out and any chance O’Bryan has is gone,” Sol said.
“Sol, Nik, I can’t heal someone who’s taken the monkshood root. The poison cannot be stopped,” Mari said.
“O’Bryan didn’t drink of the root,” Sol said quickly. “He simply went to sleep and didn’t wake.”
“Take me to him,” Mari said.
“Put this on first.” Sol handed her a long, hooded cloak. “It’s late, so there is only one Healer on duty, but we can’t be too careful. Nikolas, I had to enlist Maeve’s help.”
“Maeve?” Mari asked.
“She’s a special friend of mine,” Sol said.
“She’s his lover,” Nik explained.
“Well, I did say she’s special,” Sol said. “Maeve and I managed to convince my brother and his wife to leave O’Bryan’s bedside, where they’ve been since he began to deteriorate earlier today. We sent them to their nest to eat and try to get some sleep. I promised to send for them if his condition changed. I’m hoping that when I do it’s with good news instead of bad. Maeve’s with O’Bryan now.” He turned to Mari. “Are you ready, child?”
“I am.”
“Then follow me.”
Mari followed Sol and Nik across a wide wooden platform that enfolded four huge pines. Built into the trees were houses that looked like they could be nests for a species of beautiful, enormous birds. The nest they stopped at was the most exquisite of the group. It was swathed in diaphanous material that fluttered gracefully in the wind. Glittering lengths of sparkling objects—Mari recognized shells and crystals, as well as bits of mirrors—dangled from the branches from which the nest suspended.
The entrance of it was an easy step up from the platform. Once Mari was within, she was enfolded in soft, flickering lights thrown from candles that danced within glass cages hanging from the ceiling. The scent was thick with beeswax and putrefying flesh, and Mari immediately recognized the smell of blight.
A woman who appeared to be about Sol’s age got up from the bedside of the single patient in the nest and hurried to them, but Mari’s attention was captured by the Shepherd who bolted from her side to greet Rigel with such enthusiasm that she knocked the pup off his feet.
“Fortina, easy. Not here—not now!” The young canine immediately disentangled herself from Rigel and, looking chagrined, loped to her Companion.
Rigel padded back to Mari and sat by her feet. Mari could feel his happiness and excitement bubbling over from him into her.
“Mari, this is Maeve. Maeve, this is Mari and her Rigel—who you already know as Fortina’s brother,” Sol said.
“Hello, Mari. I’ve been very curious to meet you.” Maeve took Mari’s hand briefly in greeting, though with less warmth than Sol had shown. “Rigel is looking very well.”
Utterly overwhelmed, Mari refocused on the only thing she could control—healing a new patient. “Hello, Maeve—thank you. That must be O’Bryan,” she said, looking over the woman’s shoulder at the still body of a young man on a narrow bed.
“Yes, this is my cousin.” Nik took her arm and led her to the bed. “Tell me what you need to help him and we’ll get it for you.”
Mari opened her satchel and took out a woven pouch filled with herbs. “This needs to be steeped into a very strong tea.”
“But Mari, he’s not awake,” Nik said.
Mari glanced up at Nik. “He will be, and he’ll need that tea then.”
“I’ll brew it,” Maeve said, taking the packet from Nik and hurrying from the nest.
Then Mari turned all of her attention to her patient. He was covered with a light blanket, and when she pulled it off him she had to hold her breath as she accustomed herself to the noxious stench. The wound was simple to locate. His entire right leg was black and swollen. Gently, Mari unwrapped the bandage from around his calf. She heard Sol retching somewhere behind her, but it meant nothing to her; Mari’s entire world had narrowed to the man on the bed.
The wound was like nothing Mari had seen before. It was ulcerated and weeping pus and discolored blood. Striations of dusky, purpled disease spread from the site of the wound, and completely covered his leg. Mari lifted his tunic to see that they continued all the way past his waist, with fingers of darkness beginning to reach his chest. Where the disease didn’t mar his skin, it was hot and damp to the touch.
He’s dying—fast. He could stop breathing at any moment.
Mari squared her shoulders and pulled the basket filled with indigo poultice from her satchel. “I need some water to rinse this wound.”
In moments Nik was handing her a bucket with a ladle and a towel. Quickly and efficiently she rinsed the horribly infected wound, and then packed it with the indigo poultice.
“I need fresh bandages,” she said. Someone placed them in her hands and she wrapped them around the wound. She stood and faced Nik and Sol.
“Can you save him?” Sol asked.
“I’m going to try.” She turned to Nik. “You said that there is plenty of moonlight up here in your trees.”
He nodded.
“I need you to take your cousin and me to it, now.”
“Take you to it? Do you mean you need us to carry O’Bryan outside the nest to the platform?” Sol asked.
“No. The trees are blocking too much of the moonlight there. I need a place where there is nothing between the moon and us except the sky.”
“Is this completely necessary? Shouldn’t we wait until your poultice has begun to work? Moving him now could kill him,” Sol said.
“If he stays here the blight will kill
him,” Mari said.
“But your poultice?”
“My poultice is only one part of the cure for this disease. I need access to moonlight, and not the weak light that might filter in from those windows.” Mari jerked her chin in the direction of the high, circular-shaped windows of the nest. “Without the full power of unhindered moonlight, he has no chance,” Mari said.
“Your prayer platform. It’s the highest place in the Tribe. There is nothing above it but sun and moon and sky,” Nik said.
“Is it the only way?” Sol asked her.
“Yes.”
The Sun Priest nodded solemnly. “Then, son, let’s get your cousin up there.”
Working quickly, Sol and Nik wrapped O’Bryan up, cocoon-like, in a light blanket.
“Maeve, you stay here. If the Healer or anyone else asks after O’Bryan tell them…” Sol trailed off as if searching in vain for words he couldn’t quite capture.
“Tell them your Sun Priest has taken O’Bryan above to pray for healing,” Mari said. When the three of them stared at her, she had to force herself not to fidget nervously. “Is that wrong? The Clan goes outside to pray to our Earth Mother. Wouldn’t you pray to your Sun under the open sky, too?”
“We would—we do,” Sol said.
“What you said wasn’t wrong. It was perfect,” Nik assured her.
“I’ll go first. Keep to the shadows behind me and only move when I motion the way is clear,” Sol said. “Laru—keep Fortina and Rigel here with you.”
“No.” The word broke from Mari at a visceral level before she willed it. “I won’t be separated from Rigel. Not even for a moment. Not even for this. Nik told me I wouldn’t have to be.”
“Where Mari goes, Rigel goes,” Nik said.
“Very well. Keep the pup quiet and close to you. The entire Tribe would recognize him, and that attention is something none of us needs right now.”
Mari nodded, and then crouched beside her young Shepherd. “Stay with me and don’t make any noise, Rigel. Like we’re hiding—like we’re back around the Clan.” Within her mind Mari sketched a picture of the two of them, silent as shadows, creeping from the nest. Rigel licked her and thumped his tail briefly, then he stilled even that small, happy sound.
Mari kissed his nose, and then stood. “He understands. We’re ready.”
Nik lifted O’Bryan, holding him in his arms as if he was a small child who had fallen asleep and needed to be carried to his bed.
“He’s so light. It’s like there’s nothing left of his body,” Nik said.
Sol closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Mari saw his mouth moving as he offered a silent prayer.
“Follow me.”
The journey to the Sun Priest’s platform wasn’t long, but later Mari would remember it with a kind of distracted wonder. She crossed bridges that swayed gently in the breeze and connected clusters of homes that were exotic and incredibly lovely—each similar in form, but completely unique.
Just before they got to the stairs and began ascending to the platform, they crossed over a huge deck area, bigger than Mari could ever have imagined. In the center of the deck there were six massive pines, grown so close together for so long that they had joined to form a heart. And from the very middle of the heart, growing directly on the stately trees, was an enormous cluster of ferns, so big that a single frond could cover Nik from head to toe.
She and Nik were huddled in the shadows, waiting for Sol’s go-ahead signal. Mari whispered to Nik, “What are they?”
“Those are the Mother Trees,” he whispered back. “Growing on them are the Mother Plants. I’ll tell you all about them later.”
“I know about them,” she said softly. “They cost my father his life.”
Before Nik could say anything more, Sol motioned and they hurried across the wide deck.
The artist within Mari wanted to stop and stare at everything—to take in the myriad of nest and pods and mazelike bridges and platforms that held it all together so that she could reproduce it on paper later.
The Clanswoman within her wanted to find the quickest escape route and flee.
And what did the Tribeswoman want? Mari glanced at Rigel. She didn’t need to be connected to the pup on a Companion level to see how relaxed and at home he was. Her gaze slid to Nik’s strong, broad back as he cradled his cousin in his arms and carried him so gently that it seemed Nik’s own life depended upon it.
The Tribeswoman wants to belong, Mari thought. And that, for a change, is exactly what the Clanswoman wants, too.
They reached Sol’s platform without crossing anyone’s path. The circular stairs were narrow and steep, but Nik’s steps were steady and his arms sure. Once on the upper deck, Mari moved to the railing, quickly orienting herself.
“Put him here, facing north,” she said.
Sol helped Nik lay O’Bryan carefully on the platform. The young man didn’t waken. Nor did he make any sound.
“You have to leave me alone now,” Mari told Nik and Sol. “What happens next is for the Clan’s eyes alone.”
“But we would not—” Sol began, but a touch from Nik stopped his words.
“We’ll be below. Send Rigel when you’re ready for us to come back,” Nik said.
Mari nodded. She caught Nik’s gaze and held it, hoping that he could see how much his trust meant to her, though she couldn’t seem to find the words then to tell him.
The two men were turning away when O’Bryan’s body began to writhe in a violent seizure. Mari ran to him, turning him on his side so that he wouldn’t choke if he vomited.
“I need a piece of wood for his teeth, so that he doesn’t bite off his tongue.” She shot out the command, her voice echoing through the night sky sounded eerily like Leda. Footsteps faded and then returned, and a stick was handed to her. She pried O’Bryan’s mouth open and placed it, just as she had watched Leda do, holding it in there while she supported his head and murmured soothingly to the unconscious, dying man. Mama, what would you do now? I need you! I need help!
“Whatever you need, I’ll do.” Nik was on his knees beside her.
She looked at him. “I need you to hold him like I am so he won’t injure himself, but you can’t be here, Nik. You can’t see what I’m going to do.”
Nik locked his gaze with hers. “Then I will stay here and hold him just like you are, and I won’t see anything you do. Mari, I swear on my love for my mother that I will not betray your secrets. Trust me. Please trust me.”
I know what Mama would do. Mama would save O’Bryan and trust this man.
“Sol has to go below,” she said.
“I’m going,” Sol said, his footsteps fading as he descended the staircase.
“You must never speak of this,” Mari told him. “The life of my Clan depends upon your silence.”
“You have my vow and you will always have my silence.”
“Hold O’Bryan, just like this. Be sure you keep him on his side. Talk softly to him. Soothe his fears. But don’t let him go. Tell him it isn’t time for him to transition yet.”
Nik nodded, and took her place.
Mari turned so that the silver light of the glowing crescent flushed her face. She tried to concentrate. Tried to sketch within her mind a scene that would draw down the life-giving power of the moon and channel it through her and into O’Bryan, but she felt utterly disconnected.
Mari closed her eyes, focusing, slowing and deepening her breathing in and out, in and out, and trying to reach for the earth to find her center—her grounding.
But the earth was too far below. It couldn’t find her, and Mari didn’t know how to reach it.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Nik asked.
“This place is so strange to me, Nik. I can’t—I can’t find myself here! And if I can’t find myself, how will the moonlight know me?”
Nik put his hand over hers. “It’s the same you, Mari. Where you are doesn’t matter, and what you’re doing doesn’t matter—it’s who you are t
hat matters. Know yourself, and I believe the Moon will know you, too.”
“Oh, Nik! That’s it! It is still me—all I have to do is reintroduce myself.” Moving with increasing confidence, Mari stood and spread wide her arms. She found her mama’s voice in the music that joined the wind blowing through the trees. Joy, sweet girl! Remember to be filled with joy! And tonight, Mari, you must save some of the Moon’s power for yourself.
Mari’s smile seemed to lift from her spirit to fill her body and spill over her face. I hear you, Mama. For once, I’ll do exactly as you say.
Filled with joy and starting with M, so that the Earth and the Moon would recognize her, Mari began to dance her name among the Tribe of the Trees.
46
Holding his dying cousin as he writhed and fought to breathe, Nik waited anxiously for Mari to do something—anything—and save O’Bryan. What he didn’t expect her to do was dance. But there she was, arms held wide, hands turning and fingers fluttering as if in accompaniment to the tinkling of the countless strands of crystals and glass and beads and shells that decorated the trees, Mari began to dance. She moved around him, tracing a pattern with her steps. Her face, that face that was such a unique mixture of Tribe and Clan, was alight with joy and moonlight, and her blond hair curled around it caressingly.
Nik thought she was the most exquisite woman he had ever seen.
When she started to speak it was in a hesitant, singsong voice that reminded him of a storyteller.
“Moon Woman I proclaim myself to be
Greatly gifted I bare myself to thee.
Earth Mother aid me with your magick sight
Lend me strength on this moon-touched night.”
Still dancing around him, her voice became stronger and more confident.
“Come, silver light—fill me to overflow
So that those in my care, your healing will know.”
She paused her dance before O’Bryan’s ruined right leg and sank gracefully to her knees beside him. Gently, she rested one hand on his calf, directly over the wound. The other she lifted above her, holding it with her fingers spread wide, palm open to the moonlight. In a voice filled with power she spoke the end of her invocation.