by Barb Hendee
Osha was caught somewhere between embarrassment and confusion at her tone. Or perhaps he had had enough of being chided. Wynn sighed, rolled her eyes, and forced a smile.
He relaxed sheepishly, realizing she jested. When his gaze flicked to Magiere, that hint of a smile vanished. Leanalham showed no such concern.
"Sgailsheilleache will keep Leshil safe," she said.
Magiere nodded. "Thanks… it's good of you to come."
"Do not worry," Leanalham continued. "No matter what they face, Sgailsheilleache never fails. Brot'an'duive and Grandfather will do the rest, and you will soon be free."
Osha grew uncomfortable. He understood enough of what was said, and shared another doubtful glance with Wynn.
Leanalham's words rolled in Wynn's head. This was the second time she had noted some casual connection between Gleann and Brot'an. Poor Leanalham was as blind as Leesil, if she thought these proceedings would end any time soon-no matter this quest's outcome. Whatever Freth and Most Aged Father would throw at Magiere, it would be unexpected and ugly.
Wynn took the mug of tea the girl offered her. "How did Gleann arrive so quickly? It took us nearly eight days to reach Crijheaiche."
"Grandfather said that he left shortly after we did, but he did not tell me why." For the first time, Leanalham hesitated and then leaned forward. "But he has the faith of our clan and our other elders. His vote will be counted, and his voice will be heard."
A simplistic view, judging by what Wynn fathomed so far.
"You should eat," Osha said, "and we should not talk of the gathering."
"Yes, Osha," Leanalham answered, and did nothing to hide her exasperation.
She served trout and onions onto polished wood plates, and the savory aroma grew each time she portioned the fish.
"Here," she said, placing one plate before Chap. "A whole boned fish just for you."
Chap's tail switched the floor twice as he sniffed.
Wynn was glad to see his interest. Since facing down his kin, for her life, he had been so withdrawn.
Leanalham pulled an oblong tawny box from the canvas bag, its top stained in light and dark squares.
"I brought a game we call Dreug'an. It will help pass the time."
"Dreug'an?" Osha coughed out, well past uncomfortable, and stumbled in his Belaskian. "Sgailsheilieache question where come from. Hethink me lax in duty."
Leanalham ignored him and removed small white and black river stones from a drawer in the box's side. "He will know exactly where it came from. It belongs to him. Grandfather brought it for me."
Osha’sdark skin seemed to pale as he sagged. Then Brot'an ducked through the doorway curtain, startling everyone.
Magiere's expression hardened. She dropped her plate, and the two-tined fork clattered on it. Before she snapped a word at him, Brot'an pulled the curtain aside again. His silver hair glowed with the darkness behind him.
"I will speak with Magiere alone. Osha, you will attend Wynn outside. Leanalham, return to your quarters."
Osha immediately got to his feet.
Wynn did not like having only Osha as a familiar face to look upon among the guards outside. As much as this tree was little more than a prison, it did provide limited safety. Brot'an merely stood by the doorway.
Leanalham lightly touched Magiere's leg as she got up and quickly headed out. Osha stood waiting upon Wynn.
"Please," Brot'an said pointedly and looked down at Chap. "And you."
Chap rose slowly to all fours. For a moment, Wynn readied to pounce on the dog should he lunge at Brot'an. Chap turned his eyes upon Magiere.
"Go on," she said. "You stay with Wynn."
Chap trotted out. Wynn followed and found herself amid Osha and two other anmagiahk. She wondered what Brot'an had to say to Magiere that no one else should hear. Leanalham already headed off under the escort of another anmagiahk. The girl looked back long enough to wave in parting before fading among the night trees of Crijheaiche.
Something more occurred to Wynn. When Leanalham had said, "No matter what they face," she referred to Roise Charmune.
The nametaking rite ofthe an'Croan was unfamiliar to Wynn. She had never heard of such among the elves of her land. All here went to hallowed ground when they came of age to be given-or was it "to take"? — a name other than what their parents chose at birth. Leanalham was about sixteen, if Wynn remembered right.Old enough to have gone herself.
But by the way the girl spoke of this sacred place, Leanalham had never been there.
Leesil stopped behind Sgaile near a dank oak. The silence was wrong.
He should hear something-bugs, maybe a cricket, or even leaves shifting in a breeze. But he heard nothing, now thattheir own footfalls had ceased.
The forest thinned ahead, and he saw an open space screened by branches. It was so dark, the masses of leaves and trailing moss were little more than black silhouettes. Yet beyond them was soft light, like what a full moon might provide.
Leesil glanced up. He wasn't certain, with the forest canopy thick overhead, but the rest of the forest was too dark for a moon, full or not. He tried to make out what was hidden beyond in the clearing. He only caught a hint of glistening ocher limbs behind surrounding gnarled oaks draped in moss.
"Do not move," Sgaile whispered. "Do not look for it."
He glanced at Sgaile, uncertain what this meant.
Something slid wetly across the forest mulch. Faint and soft, it carried from directly ahead.
Leesil did look. He saw nothing but the glow of the clearing beyond the black shapes of the oaks. Sgaile's final words after their meal echoed in Leesil's head.
Unless you reach hallowed ground…I do not believe you will come back.
For the first time since starting this task, fear tickled the back of Leesil's neck-not of death but of failure. What if he didn't return to Magiere? What would happen to her? He clenched one hand, ready to face whatever this place threw at him.
The sound grew subtly louder, closing off to his left, as if something circled around the clearing instead of passing through it. A wet dragging sound came between pauses in slow rhythm.
"Repeat my words," Sgaile whispered quickly, "exactly as I say them."
Leesil barely heard him, still searching for whatever came. He was prepared for a fight, not a speech. Then he glanced at Sgaile.
The elf stood frozen in place, staring straight at the silhouette trees. His eyes twitched once to the left toward the sound and then quickly turned back ahead.
"Ahdrneiv!" Sgaile began. "En pajij navajean'am le jhaiv…"
The dark base of one oak bulged near the ground.
The swelling rolled and flowed across the forest floor toward Leesil. It turned into the path toward the half-hidden clearing.
The soft glow beyond the silhouette oaks caught on the piece of slithering darkness, and its surface glinted to iridescent green.
A long body, as thick as Leesil's own torso, was covered in fist-sized scales. Their deep green shimmered to opalescence as it came closer. Leesil caught the yellow glint of two eyes that marked its approaching head, like massive spiral-cracked crystals in an oblong boulder pushed along at a hand's-breadth above the ground.
A snake… no, a serpent, too large to be real.
Leesil reached slowly down his thighs, but his blades weren't there. He slid one foot back to retreat.
"No!" Sgaile whispered. "Do not move! Repeat my words… quickly!"
The serpent's body knotted and coiled, gathering into a mass. Its scaled and plated head rose to hover before Leesil, swaying gently. A long forked tongue whipped at his face with a hiss.
Slit irises in its yellow eyes watched him steadily.
The serpent's jaw dropped open. Fangs as long as Leesil's forearm glistened in the dark maw of its mouth. It could swallow half of him at once.
"Leshil!" Sgaile whispered. "If you would save Magiere, you must speak my words."
The serpent undulated as its head swung toward S
gaile's voice.
Leesil heard the man's shuddering breath as he felt some part of the serpent's scaled body scrape across his leg. He was still prepared to fight his way past this thing if he had to. He glanced quickly at Sgaile, and the sight was like ice pressed into his eyes, feeding its chill into his body.
Sgaile averted his gaze, anywhere but at the serpent's massive head. He closed his eyes tightly. He was shaking, his muscles rigid.
An anmaglahk was frozen in terror, and Sgaile's fear bled rapidly into Leesil.
"I… I can't," Leesil whispered.
But if he died here, Magiere would die too. The serpent swung back, yellow eyes centered on him.
"I can't speak your language," he said, despair mounting. "I won't get it right."
* * *
Magiere wanted to beat answers out of Brot'an's scarred face. She had trusted him, and Leesil might pay for her mistake. Brot'an spoke before she uttered her first demand.
"There is more at stake than just your freedom. Even if Most Aged Father's claim is dismissed, neither you nor Leesil will leave this land alive. You are interlopers, humans, so do not be naive. Am I clear so far?"
Magiere's ire held beneath her uncertainty.
"Very well," Brot'an added quietly, and settled upon the chamber floor before her. "All balances on whether Leshil steps onto hallowed ground… as much as whether or not he gains the branch of Roise Charmune."
Magiere wasn't certain what this meant.
"To be elven, as you call it," Brot'an said, his voice tainted with distaste, "is notan'Croan. We are our heritage, our blood, more than whatever race you see us as. Only asan'Croan can Leshil plead for Cuirin'nen'a before the elders."
"If he's elven," she snapped back, "then he's got as much right as anyone, under your laws."
"No, he does not," Brot'an countered, quiet and sharp. "Do you think an outsider could demand Cuirin'nen'a's freedom? To bean'Croan — to be of the blood-is all that matters to my people."
Magiere looked awayThe last thing Leesil-or she-wanted was to be snared even deeper among these people and their ways. What arrogance, what nonsense and superstition!
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean you no malice," Brot'an said. "And only wish you to understand what is truly at stake. There was no time to waste in arguing this, so I chose not to give you that chance. The only way Leshil will be seen as one of us is if he can step onto hallowed ground. That is as important as the reason he goes there."
"If?" Magiere snapped.
"Sgailsheilleache will guide him… teach him the words to ask entrance. There is no other way."
"Ask who?The ancestors?"
Brot'an shook his head. "None of us have seen what guards Roise Charmune, as no one has gone there before but a full-blooded an'Croan. And none have been rejected, to my knowledge. Leesil must gain entrance before he reaches it or the ancestors."
Gain entrance? What did that mean?
"What did you see at this Roi-say… this Seed of Sanctuary?" she demanded. "What's guarding it? Just tell me what you know."
"A sound," he answered, "something moving in the forest surrounding hallowed ground. I know no more than that. When I spoke the words my father taught me, all was silent again. I stood a long while before I tried to walk in. Even when I left, I neither saw nor heard anything more."
"What did you say?"
Brot'an hesitated."A formal plea in my language.Nothing that would tell you more or ease your mind."
But it implied that if Leesil did not make it into the burial ground…
"For what it is worth," Brot'an added, "I believe Leshil will return."
"What did you… experience when you went for your name?" Magiere asked. She tried to remember what Wynn had said Brot'an's name meant.Something about a dog.
"That is an impudent question."
"Does it look like I care?" she hissed. "You think you'll walk out of here without answering?"
"I see that you love him," Brot'an said, "in some fashion, though I do not know if that is better or worse for him. I ask you again. Have you mated with Leshil?"
"That's still none of your business."
"No more than my naming is yours. I know the answer, but I would hear it from your own lips… now!"
Magiere saw Brot'an was as determined as she was to get answers.
"Yes," she said bluntly.
Brot'an slumped ever so slightly. "What do you know of Leanalham's mother?"
"She was never happy or at home here. She ran off when her husband abandoned her and Leanalham."
Magiere didn't care for the way Brot'an studied her.
"We have more than one word," he said, "for the degrees of what humans so casually call love. Only at its deepest do we bond… mate… for life. It is why we observe a period of boijt'ana before bonding, as En’nish did for Groyt'ashia."
"Groyt brought on his own death!" Magiere countered.
"I agree, though you are not following my meaning. En’nish may look upon Leshil as the murderer of her 'betrothed', you would say. But her obsession has taken her reason. Even Leshil's death may not end her suffering. My people bond for life."
Magiere knew of others who'd lost a loved one because of Leesil. "Grief never ends. It's just something you learn to live with."
Brot'an slowly shook his head. "Not for some… not foran'Croan. Mating is life-and death-and overwhelms all else. It is rare that we ever mate outside of bonding for that very reason. Do you not remember Leshil's words to me in Darmouth's crypt… when I stepped too close to you at the end?"
Magiere could never forget. Touch her, and I'll kill you and everything you love.
Brot'an went on. "It was then I first suspected what lay between the two of you."
He had purposefully chosen not to kill her that night in the crypt. Magiere now suspected the reasons were more complex than some slip of compassion.
"Leanalham's mother did not flee this land," Brot'an said. "That is what the girl chose to believe. Gleanneohkan'thva and Sgailsheilleache chose not to correct her… to let time bring her more slowly to the truth with the maturity to face it. Her mother ran mad into the forest. Though her body was never found, I do not believe she survived."
Magiere tried to shut out mounting fear. "What of Leanalham's father?"
"He lives," Brot'an added coldly. "Life is not always lost in such matters. The young are the most vulnerable. He did not love the girl's mother, by your definition of the word, though he will still suffer. Gleanneohkan'thva was rash in bargaining to take Leanalham's father under tutelage… in exchange for a bonding he thought might ease the suffering of Leanalham's mother."
Brot'an got up, heading for the door. "Leshil is only half-blooded, with more years than Leanalham's mother had when she bonded and mated with the girl's father. Leshil knows none of what I have told you. It is important that you comprehend exactly what you have done with him."
He said this with no spite, but Magiere didn't wish to discuss her relationship with Leesil further.
"You still owe me an answer," she said quickly. "Your name… Wynn said something about a dog."
"'Dogin the Dark', in your tongue," Brot'an corrected." Though 'mastiff' would be more precise. Not wild but domesticated, like the ones humans use in war."
"Is that what you saw when you went for your name?"
Brot'an remained halfway to the door, his back still turned to her.
"It came in silence out of the night, straight from the shadow of Roise Charmune. It tore off its iron-spiked collar with its paws and bared its teeth, as if tuning upon its master."
He finally looked back, and Magiere's own spite faltered for an instant at the discomfort in Brot'an's lined face.
"At the time, I thought it a resentful shadow of arguing with my father over what I should do with my life. He did not wish me to take up service. Then later, when I joined Eillean, I thought it an image of the coming war. But I lost my taste for omens and portents over so many ye
ars. When Eillean died, it was a name and nothing more… until you appeared in our land."
Brot'an turned away to the door. "And now I stand before my people to pull down Aoishenis-Ahare for the sake of a half-blood and a dark-tainted human woman."
He was gone, leaving Magiere alone with mounting anguish growing upon an old forgotten fear.
Her memory slipped back to a tiny inn outside of Bela. She had waited there for Leesil. It had seemed almost better-safer-to let him go, before he fell prey to her dhampir side. In spite of all her fears, she wanted him too much.
What had she done to him?
Chap laid a ways off and watched the elm where Brot'an spoke privately with Magiere. Osha tried to occupy Wynn in learning to play Dreug'an. The sage relented but showed little interest and watched the curtained doorway.
Try as Chap might, he could not hear what was said.And without line of sight, he could not dip for memories surfacing in either Brot'an or Magiere. He snarled at one Anmaglahk guard just to see the man flinch.
Chap's ears stiffened when Brot'an finally emerged and walked on into the dark, not even stopping to tell Osha to return Wynn to confinement.
Osha quickly packed up the Dreug'an board and pieces and ushered Wynn off with the other two Anmaglahk close behind. Chap stayed a moment longer.
He reached out for Brot'an's memories.
Whatever the man discussed with Magiere had left him unsettled, for his mind was not the blank slate Chap had found upon other occasions. Memories flashed in his mind so quickly that Chap had to focus hard to keep up.
A mastiff stalked out of the shadow of a strange barkless tree amid a wet and barren clearing. It snarled silently at Chap as he watched it through Brot'an's memory.
Brot'an'duive-the Dog in the Dark.
This was the moment when Brot'an had gone to the ancestors for his name.
As the memory faded, Chap saw an image of Leesil traveling in the forest. And then again the image of the dog that appeared when Brot'an stepped onto hallowed ground.
The memory vanished. Brot'an's mind was as hidden as before.
Chap traipsed back to the elm, trying to fathom what he had glimpsed. He turned as Brot'an's tall form slipped away between the trees.