TORVIC AND MEGRITTE straggled into the cabin not far behind Lirra. On the trip back, Meggie had from time to time said she was hungry, even after they’d eaten the berries found along the way, but for the most part none of them spoke. Lirra had, for the first time, seemed despondent over their inability to find rivers, creeks, or ponds containing fish. It had been their last real hope. But now they passed the stinkwood fire, the rotted melon patch, the deceased vegetable garden, the small field where wheat and corn ordinarily grew. With all the chickens dead, there was no comforting noise of their clucking and squawking around the cabin. The well still gave water, but they all of them wanted something solid.
No bread. No tubers. A handful of herbs. Nothing more.
As Torvic followed Meggie into the cabin, he saw Lirra standing in front of the shelving, digging through the contents once again. Nothing was to be found, he knew; she had done the same thing repeatedly before their last trip looking for fish. Meggie crawled up onto Lirra’s bed and sat against the wall, knees drawn up and arms hugging her belly. Exhaustion was obvious in her features, with circles beneath her eyes and bones prominent. Pale hair straggled loose of its braids.
Lirra stopped rummaging. She looked at them both, lines etched into her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. Brown hair, ordinarily tucked into a neat knot at the back of her neck, was coming undone. She pressed fingertips against her forehead and rubbed. He saw fear in her eyes, and a terrible hunger. After a moment she crossed to the table and sat down in one of the chairs. Her hands, folded atop one another on the table’s surface, trembled.
She looked at him. Looked at Meggie. Closed her eyes, as if she prayed.
Torvic took the deadfall fruit he had found along the way from the hem of his tunic. He went to the table and set it beside her hands. “I’m not hungry, Lirra. You eat it.”
She looked at the fruit, then to him. “Ah, Torvic, no. It’s for you.”
He shrugged. “I ate along the way.” So they had, each of them, finding berries, nuts, a few deadfall fruits from a tall tree. Those they had indeed eaten. But they had found nothing more. None of them had truly eaten for two days.
She looked past him to Meggie. “She’s so tired, poor little thing. See her? She can’t even stay awake.”
Torvic looked. His sister was slumped against the wall, head fallen forward in something akin to sleep.
“What can we do?” Lirra asked. “She’s the youngest, the smallest, the weakest. I fear we’ll lose her first.”
For a moment he wasn’t sure what she meant. Then he knew. “No! Meggie won’t die! None of us will!”
“Hush, hush.” Lirra lifted a hand to halt the flow of words. Then she leaned forward, resting her face in her hands as she braced elbows against the table. “O dear Mother, have you abandoned us?” She looked upward, tears running down her face. “What are we to do?”
“I’ll go.” The words jumped out of his mouth. “I’ll check the snares. Maybe they’ve caught things while we looked for fish.”
Lirra nodded, attention only partially on him. She looked terribly worried, exhausted, and desperately hungry.
“I’ll find something,” Torvic promised.
Lirra’s gaze sharpened. She stared at him, almost as if memorizing his features. Her expression was stark, then altered into decisiveness. Her tone now was crisp. “Be thorough, Torvic. Take your time. Be very thorough.”
He stared back at her, then broke from his reverie and promised once more that he would find something to eat. He turned and hastened out of the cabin.
AFTER BRODHI’S DEPARTURE, Ilona returned to her tea. She took an extra fold with the rag intended to protect her hand since the kettle had ended up over the fire longer than intended. She had filled the mug and was blowing on the surface of the tea when Bethid came around the end of the wagon.
“Ilona? Have you seen Brodhi? Someone said they saw him coming this way.”
Ilona nodded, still blowing. “Yes, he was here.” Hot steam rose up from the mug into her face. Loose hair around her face began to curl. “Would you like tea? We may not be able to drink it until sundown, but there can be no complaints it’s too weak.”
Bethid shook her head. “I need to catch up to him. Do you know where he went?”
Ilona looked through steam at the courier. “I don’t think you want to catch up to him, Beth. He’s going into Alisanos.”
Shock flowed over Bethid’s face. “Why?”
“It would be to his credit,” Ilona began dryly, “if he were going to help the farmsteader’s family, but he’s not. Well, he will help the family whether he intends it or no, but that isn’t why he’s going.” She considered attempting to sip, then decided against it. She had a feeling she might burn her lips off. “Bethid, there are things about Brodhi you don’t know.”
“There are things about everyone I don’t know,” Bethid replied, impatient. “But why is he going into Alisanos? Is he mad?”
“Angry,” Ilona said, “but not mad.” She blew on the tea again, ruffling its surface. “Don’t fear for him, Beth.”
“He’s going into Alisanos! How can I not fear for him?”
Ilona weighed Brodhi’s undoubted preferences for keeping the truth secret against Bethid’s very real concern for his safety. “He isn’t Shoia, Beth. He’s from Alisanos.” She lifted a hand before the courier could blurt out a response. “I know. I do know. But it’s true.”
Color had bled out of Bethid’s face. “Did you read his hand, to know this?”
“No. He told me.” And then she reflected that Brodhi had done no such thing; Brodhi’s uncle had told her. But she feared that would prove too much for Bethid to assimilate just now.
In fact, Bethid glanced around absently as if looking for something, then simply sat down upon the ground beneath the spreading tree. She crossed her legs as if perfectly at ease, but the expression in her eyes, the tone of her voice, belied that. “Then what is he?”
“That, I can’t tell you.” Ilona risked a small sip. The tea was quite hot, but not undrinkably so. “I don’t know what they call themselves, his folk.”
“Then Rhuan is also … not Shoia.”
Ilona sighed. She moved to the nearest of the high wooden wheels and squatted down, balancing herself against the spokes as she sipped again at tea. “Not Shoia. No. Neither of them.” She smiled crookedly at Bethid. “We have either been particularly gullible, all of us, or they are extremely experienced at hiding the truth. But Rhuan always refused to let me read his hand. I did catch a glimpse once, just one brief glimpse, when he was dead. The night we met.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw … chaos.”
They stared at one another for a long moment. “Mother of Moons,” Bethid murmured. “Alisanos? You’re sure?”
Ilona nodded.
“Is he coming back? Brodhi? Can he?”
“I don’t know.”
Bethid nodded, her eyes full of thoughts. Finally she met Ilona’s again. “What do we do? Do we tell Jorda and Mikal? Do I tell Timmon and Alorn? Do we say nothing at all?” She rubbed a hand through her cropped hair. “What do we do, Ilona?”
“I think—I think we must let this be what it will be.” Ilona grimaced. “I know that sounds trite or intentionally obscure, as if I’m a charlatan trying to make you believe. But the Mother must surely have a plan. Certainly I see sense in telling Jorda and Mikal, but anyone else?” She shook her head. “I think it’s best we keep this to ourselves, for now. If we tell everyone that Rhuan and Brodhi are actually from the deepwood, we would very likely seed panic. And those maps Brodhi has drawn to keep us from Alisanos would become suspect.”
Bethid nodded after a moment. “Yes. Yes, I think you’re right.” She tipped her head back against the tree, making a strangled sound of frustration. “It just becomes more difficult, doesn’t it? Day by day!”
“Moment by moment.” Ilona raised her mug. “Tea? I promise it won’t burn a hole in your thro
at.”
“No.” Bethid rose. “No, I think I want something stronger than tea.” She cast Ilona a weak smile. “Probably a great deal of it.”
Ilona watched the courier slap at trews to free them of dirt. “Jorda will likely have questions. Tell him that when he has time, he should come to me.”
“I will.”
Bethid strode off. Ilona leaned her head against the wheel behind her and gazed up through the stormstripped tree limbs to the sky overhead. It hurt, she realized, to acknowledge that Rhuan was not Shoia. That he was in truth a child of Alisanos.
The get of a god.
Or merely the unwanted child of someone who claimed himself a god.
Chapter 32
TORVIC CHECKED EACH snare with hope filling his chest, and each time it was dashed. Of eight snares, seven were empty. He felt empty, and hungry, and sick. He approached the final snare slowly, almost afraid to look, thinking how and what he would tell Lirra and Meggie if he returned to the cabin with nothing. He was so hungry he trembled, and his belly ached, but he refused to give in to it. He peeled back the leaves hiding the last snare, and saw that it also was empty. The final failure. All growing things had died, all living things had died, and they found no rivers with fish in them. Torvic fell to the ground, trying very hard not to cry, but he was so tired, so weak, and so very hungry he had no strength to halt the tears. They ran down his face until, at last, he wiped them away with the back of his hand, trying to repress the terrified sobs that wanted badly to be released.
Da wouldn’t cry. Gillan wouldn’t cry. He, Torvic, was the man of the cabin. He shouldn’t cry, either.
But he was very hungry.
He swiped again at his face, gulping down a sob, and then he heard, cutting through the forest, a thin, high shrieking.
Meggie. Meggie.
He ran. He ran and ran. He ignored vines and brush and trees that slapped at his body, leaped over roots, tore his arms free of thorns. Meggie was screaming.
He ran past the stinkwood fire, still smoldering. He ran past wheat and corn, all dead; ran past the melon patch, all rotted; ran by the shriveled vegetable garden. He ran into the open door and stopped on the threshhold.
Meggie was screaming.
At first his mind refused to believe what it registered. But then he knew. He saw and he knew.
In Lirra’s left hand was Meggie’s wrist. In Lirra’s right was a knife.
The rope belt around her waist had unwrapped itself and rose upright in the air. No: tail, not belt.
Lirra had a tail.
She saw Torvic. As she tried to yank Meggie close to her body, she bared her teeth at him. “Weak!” she cried. “Weak! We raise what’s strong and cull the weak seed!”
Meggie still was screaming, pulling and jerking, feet scraping against the floor, trying to wrench herself free of Lirra’s hand.
“She’s weak!” Lirra cried. “My husband was weak! I had no choice! He was weak! I had to live! I was hungry! I had no choice!”
Torvic whispered, “Let her go …”
“Cull the weak seed!”
“Let her go!”
Lirra’s knife glinted. She yanked Meggie closer. Her hair, free now of its pinned coil, hung loose on either side of her face. Her eyes suddenly reminded him of a mad dog his da had once killed in the cornfield. “Do you want to live, Torvic? Do you want to live?”
Screaming. Screaming.
Again Torvic ran. He ran out of the cabin, past the vegetable garden, past the melon patch, beyond the wheat and corn. He ran to the still-smoldering fire and grabbed a length of stinkwood from it. It was burning at one end.
From the cabin he heard Meggie screaming. Lirra was still shouting that she had to eat.
Back and back he ran, and into the cabin. He saw Meggie, saw her scrabbling on the ground with one arm strung up in the air, screaming and screaming as Lirra pulled her closer. Meggie was small. Meggie was weak. Meggie hadn’t eaten in two days. How could she withstand a grown woman?
Torvic ran at Lirra. He ran at Lirra with burning stinkwood in his hands, and thrust it directly toward her face. Flame leaped to her hair.
Now Lirra, not Meggie, screamed.
“Meggie!” Lirra had let go, was beating at her hair. Torvic grabbed Meggie’s hand. “Meggie, come on!” He pulled, he tugged, dragging his sister across the cabin floor. “Meggie! Come on!”
Lirra screamed and screamed.
He dragged Meggie to the cabin door, released her hand to reach down and grab whatever he could grab, and pulled her partially upright. “Meggie—run! Run! Run!”
Still Lirra screamed.
“Meggie, we have to run!” He pulled, he pushed, he dragged. He got her across the threshhold. “Run, Meggie, run!”
And then hands came down, man-sized hands, and caught them both. Meggie screamed. So did Torvic.
“Hush,” the man said irritably.
Torvic sucked in a breath. “She wants to eat my sister!”
The man set them aside, set them out of the cabin and away from the door. “I have no particular use for human children, but neither do I eat them.”
Meggie was on the ground beside the bench. As the man went through the door, Torvic pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her the way Mam and Da did it. Meggie wasn’t screaming. Meggie wasn’t screaming.
Inside Lirra’s cabin, Lirra stopped screaming, too.
AUDRUN, SEATED WITH her back against the cliff beneath the overhang, gazed up at the creature Rhuan named draka. Still it perched atop the cliff opposite them. The coppery tail spilled over the edge, dangling loosely, and massive wings were partially opened to rest against the clifftop. Sunning itself, Rhuan had said. It certainly seemed so. The creature had tucked its head back against itself just beneath its right wing, and to all appearances appeared to be napping.
“Could we just go on to the Kiba?” she asked. “You said it isn’t far.”
“The way is too exposed.”
“Is there a possibility we could … I don’t know, shoo it away? The draka?”
Rhuan looked at her a moment, then deep dimples blossomed as he grinned widely. “‘Shoo it away?’ It’s not a cat, Audrun. Draka don’t ‘shoo.’”
But she wasn’t amused. “I need to reach the Kiba as soon as possible, Rhuan. The lives of my family are at stake.”
His grin faded. “I know. I do know, Audrun.” He looked up at the sky. “The suns will soon begin to set. The draka should leave then.”
“And then we go on at night?” Audrun tried to rein in the tension in her voice. “Or will we have to remain here until the morning?”
“I think—wait.” His hand came down on her forearm. “It’s moving.”
She looked up, and relief shot through her body. The draka indeed was moving. It folded its wings, shook its head on its long, sinewy neck, then rose up onto extended legs. The tail slid up the cliff face and disappeared.
“Is it leaving?”
“Just wait.”
With a snap the draka spread its wings. Audrun saw again how huge they were, gleaming russet-gold in the sunlight. Abruptly it launched, leaping off of the cliff, and glided down, down until Audrun feared it would crash into the ground. But it skimmed the terraced pools, made a lazy turn, then with one beat of its wings lifted itself up into the air. Downdraft stirred wavelets across the pools, set the brush to rustling. The draka flew high and higher, climbing into the sky, and Audrun’s last view was of the scaled, gleaming body carried on wide wings into the distance.
“Shoo,” she murmured.
Rhuan, laughing, pulled her to her feet. “Now,” he said, “we will start for the Kiba. We won’t reach it by nightfall—we’ll have to sleep along the way—but if we leave not long after dawn tomorrow, we’ll be there by midmorning.”
Apprehension abruptly filled her belly. They were close, so very close, but there were no certainties that Rhuan’s primaries, gods or no, would accede to her demands.
ELLICA GROOMED
THE earth around the sapling. She groomed the sapling itself. She waited for the dreya to step back out of their trees, but they did not. She waited and she waited.
Twelve trees surrounded her. Twelve trees made a ring. The were tall, mature trees, patterned branches reaching high and higher yet, gleaming in the sunlight, silver-gray in the shadows as the suns went down. She knelt beside the thirteenth tree, the smallest of all, grooming its trunk, grooming its soil. She kept no count of the days. There was no such thing as time in Alisanos, not the kind of time she knew, the day by day accounting of her life. Days, weeks, months. Here, time did not matter. Only the trees. Only her tree.
The dreya had left her. They had slipped through clefts, leaving her behind. She was not one of them. She was only human.
But I have a tree.
“Ellica! Ellica!”
She looked up, reacting to the sound. The name was unfamiliar.
“Ellica!” A boy. It was a boy. He fell down beside her, pale face smeared with dirt. “Ellica!”
She looked beyond him. A man stood there, holding a young girl. A many-braided man, glass and gold glinting in the strands of his hair.
“You’re human,” he said, “or so this boy tells me. Have they taken you for their own?”
She moved closer to the sapling, providing it with shelter.
The boy cried out again. “Ellica!”
The girl in the man’s arms stared. Her face was frozen. Her eyes were made of ice.
“I have no time,” the braided man said. “Stay, or come; it matters not to me.”
“Ellica!”
The boy put hands upon her. Human hands, hands made of flesh. So much could harm flesh. So much could bruise it.
“Boy,” the man said, “she’s lost to the dreya. Leave her to them.”
“She’s my sister!”
“So is this one, boy. You may save one, it appears, but not the other. She won’t leave her tree.”
“EllicaEllicaEllica!”
She stared at the boy. Stared at the man. Saw the young girl with eyes that didn’t blink. A word formed in her mind. “Meggie?”
The boy flung himself at her. She caught him, to save the tree. So he wouldn’t land upon it.
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