by Sharon Lee
"We share kest," she said pertly. "Will you not put yourself to sleep, as well?"
"It is," he told her, "an experiment I am more than willing to undertake."
"No," she answered, settling her cheek against her arm. "Dream well, Meri."
She was asleep before he gave answer, if, indeed, he had stayed awake so long.
"There! Did I not say she would come here!" Aflen's voice echoed triumphantly. He twisted his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back. Abused neck muscles screamed, and he smiled hatefully down into her face.
"See how frightened she is," he crooned.
He struck her across the face and threw her down on the cold stone floor. Ribbon went 'round her right wrist, shocking in its softness; and again, around her left. There was a moment—a lull—and then agony as both arms were yanked above her head, pulled hard and high. Her legs were pulled apart until she thought her hips might break, each ankle tied with another ribbon.
"Now . . ." he said, and held it up to show her. In form, it was not unlike a male member, but it glowed with inimical powers. He smiled, then thrust it into her, laughing while she screamed and screamed . . .
. . . and screamed herself awake, into a present where strong arms confined her, trapping her— She pushed, felt a flare of heat, a splash of rain—
"Becca, Becca, peace," the light voice panted in her ear, while in her head, his thought, so strong and certain—Becca, a dream. Two dreams, yours and mine. Wake, wake, be calm . . .
Sobbing, she collapsed against him, her face pressed into his shoulder, feeling the presence and the interest of trees, relaxing again as their murmured comfort soothed her.
"Why?" she gasped. "Why do we want to repair the world's ills? We are terrible—Fey and Newmen alike! Look, look at what we've both endured . . ." Her voice choked out, she lay there, strengthless, as a warmth began to build, and inside her head a picture formed, unhurriedly, like the unfolding of a flower.
An elitch leaf, as bright and as perfect as anything she had ever seen; looking at it made her feel good and whole, and then—a voice spoke, inside her thoughts, but different, so deep and wise, that she felt love rise with her infant kest, and she closed her eyes, the better to hear it said again.
Welcome, child. Vanglewood accepts you.
She sighed against his shoulder, feeling kest yet warming her blood.
"Is it all and only for the trees, that we go on, then?" she murmured.
Callused fingers slipped under her chin and raised her head until she was looking up into his face, so stern and lovely. His aura showed as lucent and pure as the light at the heartwood. She raised her hand and touched his cheek.
"No," he whispered, his voice unsteady. "Not only for the trees . . ."
Becca the Gardener . . . His arms trembled, and his inner voice failed.
She stirred, feeling the heat and the familiar, yet new, drawing of desire. I should, she thought, end this.
But she did not want to end it.
His face, his aura, his kest. She wanted to remember him, to wrap herself in the flowing green cloak of his aura, to hold him as part of her, to have him hold her as part of himself.
Show me, she said, speaking him mind-to-mind. Meri, can you abide it?
His laughter shook them both. Oh, yes. I can abide it. But you . . .
Us, she sent, and slid her fingers behind his head, pulling his lips down to hers.
His skin was smooth, a delight to her fingertips. She traced the white lines of scars, tenderly, thinking of easewerth and mint. Meri shivered under her touch and laughed, breathless, his hand molding her breast.
"Why not simply ask me to give you my virtue?" he asked, and gasped as her fingers brushed his hip.
Becca laughed then, soft. "But there is no harm in pleasure," she said, "save it harms none." She bent and kissed his chest, nuzzling his nipple, shivering as his kest washed through hers, enriching her . . . "Does that give pleasure, Meri?"
"Pleasure . . ." He ran his hands into her hair and lifted her face, looking into each of her eyes in turn. "More than pleasure," he whispered. "Becca . . ." His hands were trembling, the interplay of their auras striking desire.
It was she who trembled now, and she bent her head to kiss him, her blood aflame, sheets of gold-laced green enveloping them, piercing each.
"Root and branch, Becca . . ."
She molded her body to his, his hands stroking her as the fires heated; desire burned, and a need, an imperative, raised her up. Shivering, on fire, every fiber of body and soul yearning for completion, she straddled him. His hands came about her waist; his hips rose to meet her.
Light thundered, the skies poured glory; they rose, branches grazing the sky, roots delving deep, thoughts and memories, loves and hates, knowledge and desires, rising like sap, nourishing them, forging them in a conflagration of kest, melding them.
Changing them.
The pattern was complete, saving the positioning of the last branch. Altimere walked from Ranger to Ranger, drawing their kest, and allowing it to fall. Between them, they had little enough, though it would suffice, if he was not wasteful. He considered Xandurana as his proper destination, and trusted that his needful tools would come to his hand when called from within the Vaitura.
He checked his watch, delighted to see that it still functioned; and paused for a moment, head bent, reviewing his plan.
There were risks associated with an immediate return to Xandurana, certainly. Artifex was the seat of his power, and the prospect of reentering the Vaitura there, and recruiting himself somewhat before attempting Diathen, contained more than a grain of wisdom. It was, indeed, what anyone would expect him to do.
"It is decided, then," he murmured, and smiled down at the pretty painted face. "One does not wish to become . . . predictable."
Tucking the watch away, he picked up the final piece, transferred his smile to the bound, doomed Rangers, and walked toward the gap in the pattern.
Meri opened his eye to a night soaked in emerald and azure, at once achingly familiar and wonderfully new. Becca woke with him, and sighed, her head moving against his shoulder.
We are forever altered, she sent, her thought as bracing as a long sup from a deep spring.
We are melded, he replied, reaching to stroke her warm hair. We have grown.
He felt her laughter ripple on two levels and smiled.
And I a Gardener. But, Meri, will we always be thus close? Those others with which I shared kest . . .
He recalled, as if it were something he had read, once, and long ago, those others with whom she had shared kest, and how. Altimere, were he still in the Vaitura, had much to answer for—and not only from Diathen the Queen.
Those others—to share kest is not a melding, as you know.
"And yet," Becca murmured aloud, her voice languid, "even when we had—only—shared kest there was a connection, such as I did not experience with anyone else." She moved her head, kissing the side of his throat.
"Recall who was the mind behind the plot," Meri said, his own voice sounding absurdly relaxed. "Depend upon it, the artifact had some inhibitor woven into it, though no one else in the Vaitura may ever be able to puzzle out how it was done."
"I suppose . . ." Becca sighed, and raised her head, looking down at him with such tenderness that he felt his heart melt anew.
"I note, Ranger, that it is moonrise."
"Gardener, I note this as well." He smiled up at her and raised a hand to trace the angle of an eyebrow, the arc of her cheek. "We had best be about our business, then. Sea Hold, by dawn."
"By dawn," Becca echoed, and kissed him once more, sweetly, before turning to find her clothes.
Chapter Thirty
They came out of the trees at dawn, the sun rising behind them, striking rose-colored sparks from the walls of Sea Hold, and gleams of pure malevolence from the rows of silver trees marching down to the sea.
"No!"
It scarcely mattered which of them shou
ted in protest. Both went to their knees beneath the hammer of shock.
"No," Meri repeated, staring down at the silver-covered hillside. If Sea Hold had fallen, then they did indeed stand at the ending of the world.
"Where . . ." Becca whispered, around his sense of doom and hers. "Why are there so many?"
"I'm a fool," Meri said at the same time. "Of course they are more numerous in the West. Sea Hold has a shortcut."
Becca shook her head. "Shortcuts are transient," she began, and then pressed her lips together, remembering—but she had never known! Had she? And yet—it seemed a memory: Sea Hold maintained a shortcut, that drew its power off of one of the anchors of the keleigh.
"I didn't know that the keleigh had anchors," she whispered, and on the instant recalled that there were precisely three—at Sea Hold, at Rishlauf Forest, and at Donich Lake. "Meri, how do I know these things?"
"We melded," he answered, his voice just as soft. "I daresay I now recall your way of making a salve." He said the last word as if he had just learned it, then rose, warily, and held his hand down to her.
She slid her fingers around his and came to her feet. For a moment, they stood, looking down the slope as if the act of standing might have somehow altered what lay before them.
But no. The undead trees marched in disorderly clusters, down the hill, to the very edge of the sea. There were no birds, nor much of a breeze, the sea itself lay at the foot of the hill like a discarded mirror.
"Where are the ships?" Becca asked.
"Sian may have ordered them away, or they may have gone themselves. Sea Wise prefer to face danger from the back of the waves. No," he continued, his voice still soft, as if he did not wish to ruffle the unnatural silence; "the question we must ask is—where are the philosophers? Surely, Sian would have sent them out to deal with this . . ."
"Perhaps they're at the shortcut," Becca offered, and Meri nodded his head thoughtfully.
"Perhaps they are."
Who hears me? he asked, his thought bracing and clear.
There was no answer. It was as if the trees, too, were wary of disturbing the silence.
"Well, then." Meri sighed. "Let us to Sian. She will be able—"
"Gone," a familiar, growly voice said from the approximate vicinity of Becca's knee. She looked down into the Brethren's beast-yellow eyes, and wondered why she was so certain that this was, indeed, their late companion of the road.
"Gone where?" Meri asked. His voice was cool as if they were discussing the weather, but with a thrill of inner alarm that prompted her to squeeze his fingers in intended comfort.
"The High don't tell the Low their errands."
"That is regrettably so," Meri said. "However, there's very little need, when the ears of the Low are so sharp."
The Brethren gave a low cough that Becca would not have recognized as laughter two days ago. "The High Queen draws in her power."
"Sian's gone to Xandurana?" Meri frowned. "With Sea Hold in peril? Did she take her philosophers with her?"
The Brethren blinked its yellow eyes and scratched the underside of its chin meditatively. "I can," it said at last, "show you the way."
Becca felt a frisson run down her spine; she felt Meri's fingers hard around hers.
"There's a hole in the hedge."
"Yes, there is!" she cried, pulling her hand free and rounding on the creature. "And we have been through it and back again, with no help nor care from you!"
"Wait," Meri said softly. He looked down at the Brethren. "Another hole in the hedge?"
"Maybe so, maybe no. How many holes can there be?"
"That is an excellent question. Now, I have one for you. The last hole led us to land under the protection of Becca's kin. When we returned to the Vaitura, we stepped out into Vanglewood." He tipped his head. "Why was that?"
"Silly Gardener wanted to go home," the Brethren said with a yawn. "Longeye, too."
Becca looked to Meri. "It's saying that the holes go wherever we wish to go?"
"In which it is not dissimilar to the keleigh."
"When Altimere and I came through the keleigh, we still had half a day's ride through badlands until we came to Artifex," she protested.
"Fair enough. But you might have had a longer, if Altimere had wavered, and the keleigh let him out inside the mountains."
Becca closed her eyes—and opened them at Meri's soft laughter.
"Now," he said to the Brethren. "This new-or-old hole in the hedge. That would be Sea Hold's shortcut, surely?"
The Brethren tipped its head to a side and closed one sun-colored eye.
"I never did see the charm in these holes," Becca commented after it became clear that the creature was not soon going to produce a sensible answer. "Shall we go after Sian, to Xandurana? Oh!" She pressed her fingers to her lips and raised her eyes again to Meri's face.
He tipped his head, eyebrow well up.
"I only just recalled—to get to Xandurana, one must . . . traverse a shortcut."
"Which action, in the present climate, can only be seen as foolhardy," he agreed with a faint smile. "Well, then, are we to be less foolhardy than the Engenium of Sea Hold, and all the Queen's Constant?"
"Yes, but, Meri—" She shook her head, and showed him empty palms. "Why is the Queen calling the Constant in?"
"The heroes are busy, inside the mist," the Brethren growled. "There are more holes, even if it is all the same."
Meri nodded, his mouth grim now. "If I recall my philosophy correctly, the weight of the . . . rejected . . . trees is placing a burden on the fabric of the Vaitura which it cannot long support."
Becca frowned. "So there will be more . . . holes?" she ventured. "Until the Vaitura . . . tears?"
"I would think that among the more likely outcomes," Meri said. "In any case, Diathen must act, and in order to do so, she must convince the Constant to release the kest it holds in keeping for her."
"But, if Altimere and Zaldore are still missing?"
Meri shrugged. "If she has the majority of the Constant with her, so that she speaks fully with the will of the Vaitura, she will draw any kest withheld from her, like a sea spout draws water. If Altimere and Zaldore have returned to the elements which birthed them, then their kest will be one with the Vaitura."
"Because," Becca murmured, "kest is never lost."
"Aye."
"I can show you the way," the Brethren said, breaking its silence.
Becca sighed and shook her head. Meri bowed lightly.
"If you please, Younger Brother; show us the way."
Altimere had theorized—indeed, he had ardently desired!—a . . . livelier effect in a transfer which utilized living kest as its energy source, rather than the vapid release achieved by using keleigh-stuff.
Neither theory nor on-the-fly calculations had led him to expect the explosion of power that hurled him headfirst into his workroom. Who would have thought, he wondered, as he lay with his cheek pressed against the living wooden floor, that the Rangers had had so much to give? Cai's exultant anger would have lent an added fillip—had he not observed that principle in action with Rebecca? Yet it was true, he had not expected such a release, in such garish and thundering quantity that he had almost—almost—lost his focus. Happily, he had meditated for a dozen heartbeats upon the image of his workroom at the house in Xandurana before he had taken his place in the pattern.
Carefully, now, and noting aches and pains incompatible with one of his station, he pushed himself, first, to his knees, and then, by a process that included clawing his way up the leg of his worktable, to his feet. He rested, then, with his palms flat on the table's cool surface, shivering.
After a time, he began to feel stronger, and the relief that accompanied this observation revived him still more. He had expected some decline in his kest; the keleigh would have its tithe, after all. The sensation of weakness—of being without power—had been . . . distressing, but happily short-lived.
He straightened and looked a
bout him. The workroom was orderly and well dusted, of course; his servants would scarcely neglect that duty, whether he had been absent a single night, or ten thousand.
And that, he thought, walking to the door, was a matter of not inconsiderable curiosity to him. How long, precisely, had he been captive within Zaldore's little whimsy? How long had he afterward spent wandering the mists of the larger keleigh? He felt a flutter of regret, that he would likely never know the precise number of days he had spent separated from the Vaitura. It would have been amusing to entertain Zaldore for the exact number of nights he had lain within her care. He would of course reveal his intention before the pleasantries began, and make sure to remind her occasionally of how long she had yet to suffer. Watching her vacillate between desire and dread of the coming hour would have lent an edge.