Ember and Ash

by Pamela Freeman

  In between, the glades were full of food plants. Berry canes, hazel bushes, apricots trained against the trunks of other trees for shelter, and vegetables, their distinctive tops scattered at random: onions and carrots, small wild leeks and dandelion greens, sallet and parsnips.

  What looked like wilderness was a farm, but who was tending the crops? And how were the grazing animals, which were everywhere, kept from the human food? Deer were great destroyers of early crops, and Ember couldn’t believe they wouldn’t have tried to get to this feast. But Ember caught glimpses of them, happily grazing in the meadowlands, just a little way away from the glades.

  That was an enchantment the farmers of Last Domain would like to learn.

  They had seen no one but the little girl, but there were sounds all around them, birdsong and animal calls, wind and water. Ash came up beside her and said quietly, “Those birds sound a lot like the little one.”

  Ember listened more closely. Were people talking to each other, over their heads, watching from the network of rooms and walkways which seemed to stretch from one side of this valley to the other? It was a disquieting thought, and she shivered. It was also a breach of protocol.

  “Where are your people, my lord?” she asked.

  Elgir turned to her and waved a hand.

  “Around,” he said. “Watching you. We have few visitors.”

  That was clear enough.

  “Why did you bring us here?” she asked.

  He stopped and the others behind them had to stop too, the horses huffing a little and shuffling, the dogs coming forward to nose Ember’s hand. Holdfast still stayed a little away from Elgir, but Grip treated him like a long-known friend. Elgir looked up at the nearest tree, a giant beech which wound its branches into a tall tower with small openings. A tower walled with leaves, she thought. They must freeze in winter.

  “I brought you here because you carry power with you,” Elgir said eventually, choosing his words. “And power is dangerous left uncontrolled, but it is more dangerous when it is unknown. To protect my people, I had to discover more about you.”

  That’s a lie, Ember thought. Or rather, it’s the truth but not the deeper truth.

  “No other reason?” she prodded. He lifted his chin, as the elk at the stream had done, to stare down his nose at her.

  “There is probably another reason,” he said, voice soft as moss, “but I do not know it.”

  And that was the truth. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ash nod, once, and knew he’d heard truth, too. Cedar moved forward, as if pulled unwillingly.

  “Is it your spells that have shaped this place?” he asked. Now that was dangerous, to ask an enchanter about his power, but Elgir’s face cleared and he answered readily.

  “Mine, my father’s, his father’s… and other friends.”

  “Human friends?” Ash cut in. Elgir laughed.

  “Sometimes,” he said, and it wasn’t clear if he meant that some of his friends were human, or that his friends became human sometimes.

  Ember decided to leave it at that until they had Curlew back.

  They moved through glade after glade, past treerooms and towers and winding stairs made from branches. The air was full of the scent of sap and mayflower. She couldn’t help asking, “What happens when the leaves fall? How do your folk stay warm during the winter?”

  He looked sideways at her, amused again. “Some leave,” he said. “Some find other shelter. We manage, as we always have.”

  And somehow that put images into her mind of birds migrating and badgers burrowing and bears curling up for their winter sleep. Elk, she knew, continued to graze through the winter, eating birch bark and buried grass.

  The ground began to slope upward, and Tern, behind them, began to move faster, pushing them forward. He was right, Ember thought. They should be hurrying.

  “Where will we find our sergeant, my lord?” she asked. “And in what case?”

  “How he’ll be depends on him,” Elgir said. “That spell is a strong one, to safeguard my people.”

  “It was not safeguarding anyone,” Cedar said. “It was coercing.”

  His voice was not disapproving; more like a teacher’s, or a storyteller’s, explaining something to a child.

  Elgir dropped back to walk next to him, and Ember listened intently. They were alike, these two, in looks and walk and manner—saturnine and complex, hard to predict. Perhaps Cedar could understand this lord better than she.

  “In your case, that is so,” Elgir acknowledged. “But the spell was not made just for you.”

  “What are you protecting, up there on the plateau?”

  “Some of my people need that space,” Elgir said. “You may see them yourself, some day.” His tone was final; no more discussion. But Cedar pressed him.

  “You control the ghosts of former warriors,” he said. “Like the enchanter Saker, who once almost destroyed our world.”

  Elgir shrugged. “You think they were real ghosts?” He smiled, narrowly, in challenge. Bull elk, Ember thought. “Would I constrain my own people and deprive them of their chance at rebirth?”

  “Well, would you?” Cedar retorted. Elgir laughed.

  “Only if they wanted me to,” he said.

  The slope steepened and Elgir said, “Leave the horses here,” when they came to the next glade, a small grassed enclave fed by a stream which was half waterfall, sliding down over rocks into a pool. From a small glade to the right a horse wandered over, whickering happily. Blackie, Curlew’s mare, looking just fine. The dogs greeted her, bounding at her heels, teasing her. Feeling more hopeful, Ember and the others unsaddled the horses. Merry rolled in the grass and then shook herself to her feet. Tern got out their nosebags, but the horses ignored him, crowding around Elgir instead. He was talking to them, softly, in a language she didn’t know. They listened. Nuzzled his arm. Blew breath into his face, as if he were a friend. His voice ended on what was clearly a question, and all of the horses huffed or whickered or whinnied in answer, then turned to graze. The dogs lay down in the sun and stretched, quite content.

  “No need to hobble them,” Elgir said. “They will wait for us.”

  None of them commented. He was an enchanter and he had just done enchantment in front of them. It was enough for him to be deposed by the Warlords’ Council, because no warlord could be an enchanter, but Ember doubted he ever considered the council at all. This land might be called the Northern Mountains Domain, but it was no part of the country she had grown up in.

  The high trees began at the very top of the ridge, which was not peaked but flat, as though someone had run a knife along the top to smooth it. The scent of evergreen was very strong as they climbed; not pine, not even the familiar odor of the cedarwood chests her mother kept blankets in; these were the living trees, and they smelled of life, heady and invigorating. The scent filled her lungs and made the climb easier, lifting her up.

  These trees did not seem to have been enchanted. There were no entwined branches, no rooms with green lath floors. The trunks rose high and straight, and only far above their heads did the branches sweep out. They were close together: leaning back, Ember could see that far up the branches did intertwine with each other, but whether that made rooms or floors or walkways she couldn’t tell.

  “You will find him on the highest level, I believe,” Elgir said.

  “How do we get up there?” Tern asked, voice squeaking.

  “Most of my people fly,” Elgir replied.

  How useful, Ember thought dryly.

  “And the others?” she asked.

  “They climb the saplings.”

  At the edge of the ridge, before the tall trees cut off the sunlight, smaller trees were growing. These had branches all the way to the ground, but they were spindly, still, and didn’t reach quite high enough for an easy transfer to the more solid trunks.

  “You are not climbing up there,” Ash said flatly.

  She glared at him. Didn’t he have any idea of pro
tocol? No. Of course not. Farmers and bowyers rarely did. She would have to excuse that.

  “My cousin,” she said to Elgir, “fears for my safety.” Family were allowed license which other courtiers were not. Even if Elgir held no real court, she had to maintain her father’s dignity.

  “You are not cousins,” Elgir said. It wasn’t a question. His face showed only mild interest.

  “An honorary title,” she said. “Ash’s mother was adopted by my mother as a baby. Technically, we are not blood kin, but we are certainly family.”

  “Nephew,” Elgir said. “Honorary.”

  Ash laughed. “She tried calling me that, once,” he said. “But I’m a year older, so I didn’t think it was right.”

  Ember couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “You pushed me into the pig trough,” she said.

  Nodding, Elgir looked from one to the other. “Family,” he said. “But not blood kin. And that may matter, one day.”

  Cedar shivered at his words, but Ember couldn’t tell if it was a warning. Sight, perhaps? There were too many unchancy things around here and she was beginning to feel dizzy, like a child who’d been spun around too many times in Seeking Blind.

  “You’re not climbing up there,” Ash repeated. He held her gaze until she nodded. “You stay with her,” he ordered Cedar, then turned to Tern. “Come on, lad.”

  He tossed the jacket he’d been carrying to Cedar, but he gave his bow to Ember, and she took it with due ceremony. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

  “Yes, I will look after it,” she said. Laughter lit his eyes. She wanted to reach forward and kiss him, to lean her body against his full length and feel his muscles move against her, his arms come around her. Her hand began to move, without her willing it, to touch his face, but she pulled it back before he noticed. Her shoulders ached with the effort of not touching him.

  “That’s my princess,” he said. He stood with his hand on the trunk of the highest sapling, looking up, his face clearing of all emotion. She wondered what he was thinking. “With your permission,” he said, but he was talking to the tree, not to her.

  Elgir nodded in approval.

  “She grants you passage,” he said. Ash swung up into the lowest branch and began to climb, Tern close behind.

  Starkling

  Ash climbed as swiftly as he could, ignoring the sway of the sapling, pretending for Tern’s sake that there was no danger. The cedar bark was rough but years of sanding wood had made his hands tough as oak. Brushing against the needles let the cedar scent loose—it reminded him of Winterfest, when his mother used to bring the evergreen boughs into the house and hang them from the window—that was how Cedar got his name, being born at Winterfest.

  As they climbed, his footholds became smaller and more tricky, but he’d got into a rhythm by then and was beginning to enjoy it. He’d been sitting on a horse too long. The trees beside them were solid, but being on top of the ridge the sense of space around them expanded as they climbed, so that they were climbing into moving breezes and free air. He could feel his heart calm; this was his place, high and moving, wind and sky.

  The sapling was growing sparse and beginning to sway with each step up, but the lowest bough of the near tree was still some way up. He grinned and climbed higher, then braced himself against a solid bough and reached a hand down to Tern.

  “Come up, lad,” he said. “I’ll boost you.”

  It was like the games he and Cedar had played as boys, standing on each other’s shoulders to dive into the mountain pool below the ford. He bent a knee so Tern could walk up it, then hoisted him under the backside until he was standing precariously on one shoulder, steadying himself against the other trunk.

  “Up you go,” he said. Tern could just reach the bough with his fingertips, but not enough to get a good hold. Ash flexed his feet and eased up an inch or so—it was enough. Tern struggled and scrambled and swore a few good soldier’s oaths, but he dragged himself up onto the branch and sat, panting.

  With his weight out of the tree Ash dared to go a little higher, and then grinned to himself. It was a long way down, but there was no way Tern had the strength to lift him.

  “Move back, lad,” Ash said. Tern, puzzled, held the branch above his head and slid across to another branch.

  Ash moved as high as he could, until the sapling shivered and began to bend. He flexed his knees, yelled, “Hah!” and sprang as high as he could, arms reaching. He wasn’t going to make it. He could feel himself pause in the air, ready to drop. But the wind roared up the trunk beneath him and seemed to push him just a little higher. Just enough. His hands found the branch, his feet scrabbled against the trunk and, impossibly, found a knot to give him purchase, and he was up and on the bough, sweating and astonished.

  Perhaps Elgir had sent that blast of air to help him. He shrugged. No telling here and now.

  “Let’s climb,” he said to Tern, reaching a hand to haul the boy up.

  The branches were further apart on the big trees, but they were rock solid. His shoulders would feel it tomorrow, he thought, taking a break to give Tern a breather. Ash looked out and felt his heart lift. From here they could see right across Elgir’s valley: the wide curve of the encircling river, the dark forest beyond, the glades and trees and streams of what he must think of as the town. South, mountains reaching west and east. He edged around the tree to see if he could look out to the west, but the ridge was too thickly wooded to let him see the western mountains. Fire Mountain was at the junction of the two ranges. Perhaps when they were higher he would be able to see it.

  The air up here was cool and invigorating. They climbed with more energy after the rest, not speaking much, helping each other where necessary. Ash felt returned to childhood, and wished that Cedar were here instead of Tern. Thoughts of Cedar led him to dwell on Ember, so far below, so fragile, so strong.

  His little cousin was someone he hadn’t really known. Never thought about. Warlord’s daughter, redhead, Grammer’s daughter. Spoiled, like all officers’ children, but nice enough. Familiar and taken for granted. Until now.

  He wasn’t even sure what was happening, except that whenever danger threatened her, he felt suddenly and fiercely protective. As for desire… well, she was pretty, of course, and it had been a long time since he’d lain with anyone. It was only natural that when he came near to her, smelled her scent, that he felt need. He spared a moment, as he paused to haul Tern up to the branch next to him, to remember Berry, who had wavered all last summer between him and his cousin Pike, and had finally settled on the one who didn’t have a mother who spoke for the gods. She’d been open enough about why, and he’d felt mostly a guilty relief. He’d have married her if she’d wanted—after all, he had to get married sometime and she was the best of the local girls. He’d been proud that she’d even thought of him, and the afternoons they’d spent in the meadow grasses had been better than good. But he’d danced at her wedding with a clear heart.

  Ember’s wedding… he’d been looking forward to that. Whatever he was feeling, it had come after that; it had started, he thought now, in that room where she had challenged Fire so bravely, so recklessly… he put the thought aside and concentrated on the next branch, the next foothold. His shoulders were aching harshly, but there was still a long way to go.

  Glancing up, he could see that above was a kind of floor circling the trunk. All the trees had them, at different heights. These weren’t the interlaced, grown floors of the other trees they had seen. They were constructed: dead branches, twigs, an intricate latticework which seemed to have been tied together with reeds.

  There were no openings to let them up. He looked around—the tree nearest to them had a floor lower than the one they were climbing on. So if they went higher, they should be able to jump across to the next tree.

  A few branches more and he could see across to the next tree. Even so high, the cedars were enormous, their branches spreading out larger than the main room in his pare
nts’ house. The platform encircled the tree, but he could not see across it, because there were partitions, also woven of branches and reeds, half thatch, half wattle without the daub. The nearest partition left only a foot or so of room for him to land on, and the gap to it was wide.

  He grinned. The road is long and the end is death, he thought, remembering all the times his mother had said that. If we’re lucky.

  Edging out as far as he could on the branch, he turned until he was facing directly to the opposite tree. There was a game they’d all played as children, running along tree branches as far as they could before they leaped into the river below. Cedar, lighter and lither than he was, had always beaten him.

  He took a breath and ran, balancing, wobbling, but picking up speed. Behind him, Tern shouted something, but the rushing speed was pushing him, lifting him as it had as a child, and he whooped as the branch dipped beneath his feet. He leaped, curving through the air. There was no blast from beneath this time to support him, but he didn’t need it—he was across, slamming into the partition wall and bouncing back. He dug his heels in, spun and grabbed whatever he could—the end of the partition—and then half-slid, half-fell, to the floor at the very edge. He ended with his head over the long, long drop, seeing the ground below, the branches between, a kingfisher flying beneath him, blue wings flashing in a patch of sun, everything clear and sharp and the only sound his own gulping breaths. He realized he was laughing.

  “You’re mad!” Tern was shouting. “You’re insane!”

  Ash dragged himself back onto the platform and rolled over onto his back, still chuckling quietly. The branches above him had varying sizes of platforms, and here, at last, were things connecting them, although they seemed to be mostly vines strung across the gaps and between levels.

  He rolled to his feet and stood back as far as he could.

  “Come on, lad,” he said. “You’re lighter. You’ll be able to get closer than I did before you jump.”

  But Tern was shaking his head.