by Sharon Lee
"The strongest thread that binds us, zinchessa, is that of teacher and student. For you must admit that I taught you . . . much."
"You taught me much," she agreed. "And all of it false. I reject you." She turned.
He raised a hand, murmuring a word—there came another explosion of displaced air, and—
"Meri, no!" Rebecca cried.
Meri shaped his image of the Queen's Hall with deliberate care, being most especially certain not to people it with any of the folk he might have expected to find there during his unhappy youth. He crept along the thin, dank tunnel on his hands and knees, his attention—his belief—on that fearsome chamber. He gazed upon it until his head was full of nothing else, then pushed the reality of the room ahead of him, a single step ahead of him, until all at once the tunnel gave up its game. Meri stood, and walked onto the floor.
Who comes? The voice of the tree which encompassed this chamber rang in his head like a bell.
Meripen Vanglelauf, Ranger. Rebecca Beauvelley, Gardener. A Low Fey. We bear news of interest to the Queen.
Who else comes? the tree demanded, and Meri blinked, looking about him for perhaps the first of the arriving members of—
"No!" Becca shouted. "Release me at once!"
He spun, saw her attackers, and jumped forward, though what he meant to accomplish he could not have said.
As it happened, his intentions were of no matter. Tentacle-wrapt, Becca vanished, her voice chopped off in mid-complaint, her abductors leaving a spangle of kest on the wind of their departure.
"Where have they taken her?" he demanded, and threw his thought wide, calling out to all the trees of the city: The Gardener has been taken. Where?
For a heartbeat—two—there was no answer. He held himself still, recruiting patience, aware of the Brethren growling at his knee.
She is here, an elitch said suddenly. In my garden.
Show me! Meri sent, feeling a tug, and hearing a sound, as if the surf were pounding out a storm against the land.
The Queen's Hall snapped out of existence; there was a moment of breathless tumbling, as if he had been caught in treacherous seas, then a boom.
He crashed to his knees among flowers, his sight confused, and Becca's voice crying out.
"Meri, no!"
He shook his head, and came to his feet, turning to face her.
"This is hardly my preferred method of travel," he told her, and then took in her pale face, and the thrill of her fear. "Becca?"
"Run!" she cried.
"But how rude in a guest," another voice commented in the ornate accents of an earlier time. Chilled, Meri turned to face the third occupant of the garden.
He sat at his ease on a stone bench beneath the elitch tree, a wineglass held negligently in one long, white hand. Hooded amber eyes considered him with a coolness belied by the bands of crimson that marred his mauve and cream aura. Excepting those telltale signs of passion, he looked much as he had when Meri had last seen him.
Altimere the artificer.
"Rebecca, have you brought me a Wood Wise to replace Elyd?" he asked, languidly. "How very kind in you." He sipped from his glass, then held it out. A tentacled creature darted from somewhere to pluck it out of his fingers and bore it away up the path to the house.
"I have not brought you a Wood Wise," Becca very nearly snarled. "Meri, please leave."
"I don't believe I can," he told her truthfully, and saw her understand that with a horrified shake of her head. "Perhaps if we both left together?" he suggested.
"I am afraid I cannot allow that," Altimere said, sternly. He rose, and shook out his lace, giving Meri another glance. "No, that I certainly cannot," he murmured. "The child brings me not merely a Wood Wise, but a hero." He inclined his head, ironically.
"Be welcome, Longeye."
Ridiculous, Meri thought, that it was gentle words of hospitality that finally woke his own fear, and brought him to a sense of where he stood. He took a breath, and did not allow dismay to stain his aura, while hoping ardently that Becca's control continued.
Regally, he inclined his head. "Altimere, I thank you for your welcome. Alas, I am wanted in the house of my cousin, and Miss Beauvelley, as well. Let us come to you again when we are all more at leisure."
"We are not so pressed as that," Altimere purred. "The second call has only just gone out." He smiled, his aura only a creamy swirl. "Indeed, we shall enter the Queen's Hall together."
"No," Becca said, her voice shaking with the effort of courtesy. "Altimere, we must make ready. Surely you know . . ."
"Rebecca," the Elder interrupted, turning away from Meri as if he had forgotten his existence—"Rebecca, you must allow me to compliment you on your growth! Not only a lovely aura, but as plump of kest as— But what is this?"
He paused, amber eyes narrowing, and looked to Meri frowningly.
"Hero Longeye, this were my property."
Meri felt a jolt of anger—his and Becca's, doubtless. He felt no surety that it had not stained his aura; certainly Becca displayed a brief, if searing, bolt of crimson. Carefully, he took a deep breath, feeling after the vocabulary of diplomacy.
"Elder Altimere, you are aware of the Queen's Rule. The powerful may no longer subvert the service of those lesser than themselves."
"The Queen's Rule," Altimere said, with a tender smile at Becca. "Do you think the Queen's Rule protects mongrel-Fey, as well? There having been no such creatures when she Spoke, the case might well require argument before the Constant."
"What are you talking about?" Becca asked.
He looked to her, to Meri's eye an amused and tolerant host.
"Surely, zinchessa, you recall the tale of the Fey lady who came to review your father's tenant records, when you were but a babe in arms?"
Becca frowned, and Altimere laughed fondly.
"Come, come! I had the whole mysterious tale from your brother one evening whilst we lingered over a friendly glass. The Fey lady was looking for news of kin—that was the tale she told your father, and the tale she herself undoubtedly believed. Alas, the keleigh has disturbed temporal factors as well as physical, and the lady did not know that the child she sought—the fruit, so I have come to believe, of a melding between a Wood Wise attached to her honor, and a wife of the House of Barimuir—was a generation dead." He tipped his head, clearly amused. "I gathered from your brother's story that the current babe in arms—yourself—was not shown to the lady, else she might have seen what was left to me to discover."
"I am a halfling?" Becca said, slowly.
"Quarter-Fey," Altimere told her. "Like your horse. Small wonder that you understand each other so well." He shook his head, suddenly stern.
"Rebecca, what became of your beautiful necklace? Did Hero Longeye reft it from you?"
"I took it off," Becca panted, as if she were withstanding some very great force. "I, myself."
"Really?" The Elder Fey raised thin eyebrows. "I own myself impressed by your will, and your willingness to risk . . . all. Well done, Rebecca. Now," he said briskly, "I have uses for both of you. The Longeye shall, in deference to his station, receive his orders first."
The air suddenly became heavy, almost too thick to breathe. Panicked on his own behalf, Meri recognized the feel of power being raised, and all of it—all of it, focused on him.
Power infused the air, glittering; like ice crystals thickening a winter sky. Her feet rooted to the ground, Becca watched the seductive creams approach Meri, plucking at the edges of his blue and green silks. They rippled, like tide, and the cream swirled gracefully away, except, she saw with horror, the tiniest thread of mauve that had adhered among the ripples. Even as she watched, it began to weave itself into the fabric of Meri's aura.
Who hears me? Becca sent, desperately.
I hear you, Gardener, came the voice of the very first tree who had spoken to her, here in this garden. The tree who had helped her and given her shelter. Becca bit her lip, in an agony lest her sudden spike of hope
be reflected in her aura, and Altimere see it.
Please, she sent carefully. This Ranger is Meripen Vanglelauf. Please, do not allow Altimere to subject him.
Of course the Sea Ranger is known and has our kindest thoughts, the tree answered.
You will help him?
The mauve and cream thread had spread now, into a blot, a mar, as if it were some inimical substance that was burning a hole through Meri's aura. Sickened, Becca recalled the golden blot of her misguided will deforming Jamie Moore's simple aura.
And the tree had not answered her.
She swallowed, watching the stain grow—almost as large as her palm now, and the thick air tasting of brine, and mint, and saltpeter.
The Ranger has the mark of a greater service upon him, the tree said at last, and as if it were an answer.
Send to the Alltree, then! Becca thought furiously. And tell it that its service stands in danger of subversion!
The tree did not reply; she hadn't really expected that it would. And she—she could not—she would not—stand and watch this happen. To see Meri melt into subservience, desiring only what Altimere allowed him. Or—infinitely worse!—aware of his captivity, as Elyd had been, and all too cognizant of his inability to break free.
Meri's face was set into the stern lines that she knew now meant he was afraid. He did not look at her, nor at Altimere, but gazed up into the elitch branches, as if in meditation. Their bond brought her an attitude of intensely focused will, tightly controlled eddies of fear, and one cold certainty: The sea may not be bound.
For Altimere, his attention was wholly focused upon Meri, his head tipped slightly to one side, as if they were old friends enjoying a slightly spirited argument over the merits of a horse they both fancied. As far as she could determine, he was not paying the slightest attention to her, so certain was he that she could neither interfere nor escape.
Very well, then. She had surprised him more than once. He had told her often enough that her ability to do so was one of the many reasons he held her as a treasure of his house. It would, therefore, not displease him, Becca thought grimly, if she surprised him once more.
She brought her attention to her feet. Now that she looked for them, she could see quite clearly the cream-colored wisps about her ankles. If she shifted, they tightened; when she relaxed, they did the same. Recalling the healing of her arm, she wondered if she might burn the wisps away, while Altimere's attention was elsewhere. It was a desperate plan, at best, and she had no illusions that the Elder Fey's attention would remain elsewhere, if he should perceive that he was under attack.
If she were to risk something so perilous, she thought, it was necessary to have a plan to follow on. Her knife was lost with her pack. Simply throwing herself against Altimere and shouting at Meri to run seemed . . . ineffectual at best—even if she believed that the sunshield would allow them at last to separate.
No, she needed a weapon—a distraction, perhaps, or—
Pain, like a wash of acid along her nerves. Becca ground her teeth to hold in the scream, her kest rising like the tide, cooling, if not healing. She swayed where she stood, took a breath, and raised her head.
Fully one-quarter of Meri's defense had fallen, by the measure of the blot upon his aura. And she—their bond. The pain she felt was the action of Altimere's kest on Meri.
Perhaps she did not need a weapon, she thought, wildly. Perhaps she was a weapon.
She looked about her, taking no pleasure in the flowers, or in the display of seasons. Something, somewhere in this garden was a weapon that would give her a chance, at least, of rendering Altimere impotent. But if the trees would not—
The elder trees remembered, Gardener, the elitch said. Do you find the seasons represented properly?
As properly as they can be, without the true aid of seasons, she answered, and sent another plea. Can you not assist me?
In what endeavor?
Becca swallowed an urge to scream, a white gleam, sharp as a knife's edge, catching the side of her eye. She turned her head . . .
The season wheel . . .
Altimere uttered a small sound, perhaps of surprise. A quick glance showed sweat on his pale brow, the edges of his aura stained, oh so faintly stained, sea-blue.
I would visit the season wheel, she sent to the tree, her eyes on Meri's face. His eye was closed now, his hair lying across his shoulders in wet strips of brown, auburn, and black, like seaweed. The smell of brine was very strong, and though the air was still thick, there was a different quality to it—more like a storm a-boiling, than the heaviness of ice.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Becca reached to cool power coiled at the base of her spine, and began cautiously to draw—
Something touched her ankle.
She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, staring downward, as a horny nail touched the pearly wisp binding her left foot. It dissipated like so much mist, and a moment later the right binding did likewise.
Becca stepped back, one cautious step. Neither combatant seemed to notice her. She took another step, turned, and ran.
The Brethren was in the garden; Meri had seen the flick of a tufted tail beneath the bench Altimere had lately quit, and the outline of a horn against the elitch trunk. The Low Fey were potent mischief-makers when they chose to be, as befit the offspring of chaos.
He did not wish for the Little Brother to place itself in harm's way. On the other hand, he surely required some assistance, with Altimere's kest already contaminating his, a sensation not unlike that of the Newman's poison metal corroding his flesh. It was well that the Elder High had been surprised by the strength of his defenses. What was not well was that he had immediately altered his own attack and was beginning to push Meri's will hard.
Truly, he thought, eye closed, he stood between the devil and the sea, and whichever won this contest, there would be at the last little remaining of Meripen Longeye.
He heard a crashing, and the rattle of stones told over by waves; then silence, unbroken even by the scream of a gull.
"Meripen Vanglelauf," Altimere's voice breathed into his ear, sweet as any lover. "Surrender your will to me. Why should we contend? Do we not hold as our goal to seek Diathen the Queen, and to testify before the Constant? Come! Ally yourself with me. Let us be of one will, and one desire . . ."
He was caught, bound, his flesh burning; the air tasted of dust and blood.
Who hears me? he sent, despairing, as he had done over and over from the Newmen's stone prison, his answer only and always silence . . .
I hear you, Ranger, the resident elitch answered, swiftly. You are under leaf, and your roots are deep.
I am lost . . .
"Come . . ." the sweet voice breathed. "There can be an end to agony, and a service like no other. Cede to me."
Not so. You will endure.
Meri's knees wobbled. He locked them, gathered the rags of his will, and rejected the intruding poison. Altimere laughed, as if amused by the bumbling of a sprout.
His kest—strange desires boiled in his blood, deceit wounded his honor, ambition soured his service. He—
His kest . . . rose. Potent and moist, rising from his deepest roots; the kest of the Vaitura itself, diluting the poison.
Meri pulled his will around him.
"Cede . . ." Altimere whispered, his kest rising even to meet this new level of power.
Cede? Meri thought, shaking his head. Cede the sunshield? Cede the trees?
Cede Becca?
"No," he whispered.
The duainfey flower burned like a star among its dark, plentiful leaves. Becca extended a hand, and snatched it back, knowing it would burn the flesh off the bone if she attempted to pluck it.
She looked quickly over her shoulder—and all but cried aloud.
Meri's aura was an incoherent smear of blues and greens, seen through a hard creamy glitter, as if he were encased in glass. He swayed, and caught himself, as Altimere stepped toward him, his posture triumphant.
"Please," she begged, feeling her kest rise, as if she meant to meld with the plant. "Please, give me of your essence—the virtue only of two leaves."