by Barb Hendee
Chane grasped the leather string slick with his own black fluids still running down his neck. He pulled it until a small brass urn dangled free of his shirt.
Welstiel stepped closer and the dogs remained still as he passed. "Leave one alive to take as a familiar. It can track ahead and perhaps aid in our search."
He turned away, glancing once at the dying horse with a weary sigh.
It was a sound Chane always found strange to hear from an undead, even when he did it himself. They breathed only when needing to speak, and a sigh was but a habit left over from living days.
"We'll walk and use my horse for the baggage," Welstiel said. "Collect what remains of your horse's feed, and roast its flesh to store for your new familiar."
Chane picked up his sword. It all sounded sensible and rational, but the scent of blood was thick around him. His hunger stirred, though he had no need for sustenance.
Dog and horse—lowly beasts—but the mount had served Chane, and the pack only sought to survive. He understood that, and it left him strangely disturbed as he skewered the first dog with the tip of his blade. Even at its yelp, the others just stood there, waiting to be slaughtered.
He did not pick or choose and merely killed the dogs one by one within reach, until the last stood cowering before him. He closed his eyes and imagined once more…
A quiet place in the world where Wynn's round face glowed by the light of a cold lamp crystal. Her eyes drooped in sleep over the parchment, and he reached out for her…
* * * *
Wynn returned with Chap and Lily to the barrier woods. The silver deer was gone, but the remainder of the pack ranged about.
Her face and hands stung from scratches, and her left leg ached, but she limped along. These injuries seemed paltry compared to the majay-hì found broken and dead beneath the birch's branches. The steel-gray female had come for her as the Fay tried to drag her out to her death. Now her twin brother wandered listlessly among the trees, barely in sight of the others.
Of all things Wynn had faced, from vampires to Lord Darmouth and his men, the Fay's sudden wrath terrified her most. It was so unexpected.
Before discovering Chap, she had considered the Fay to be little more than an ideological personification of the elemental forces that composed her world. In knowing Chap and coming to believe in what he was, she had thought the Fay benevolent if enigmatic, much like him.
They had killed a majay-hì because she had heard them and learned how they had used Chap.
The world now made far less sense to Wynn.
Chap stepped up to the brambles filling the trees of the barrier woods. He ground his paws into the earth. Wynn did not need mantic sight to guess what he did.
She had seen the silken vapor of spectral white fire rise around Chap as he faced his kin. When he turned on them to defend her, his body had flashed and blinded her for an instant. His kin had fled in fear.
He annoyed her so many times with his doggish behavior, slovenly and gluttonous habits that made it difficult to remember what he was. When he chomped a greasy sausage, she did not see how anything descended from the eternal could be so… disgusting.
But he was Fay—and now outcast. Perhaps traitor as well to his eternal kin, though they deserved no better.
Chap clamped his teeth upon a bisselberry vine, and Wynn watched in chilled fascination.
Round berries receded to flowers and then to small buds among the vine's broad leaves and long thorns. Leaves shrank in size and thorns shortened as both faded into light green stems. The vine's branching parts withdrew as they shrank in size.
Wynn watched its wild maturity turn back to infancy as the thorny plant grew younger and smaller. It receded into the earth from whatever fallow seed it had sprouted.
"You reverse the course of life?" Wynn whispered.
Chap stepped into the hollow left by the vines, and the leaf-wing whispered in Wynn's head.
Only to take my kin's touch… what they leave of their will upon the world… as I took the pieces of them reaching for you.
She had grown accustomed to picking meaning from his multitongued voice, though it still made her stomach roll. The inky elder followed Chap inward. Wynn stepped in with Lily, and the other majay-hì came behind.
Dawn grew to day as Chap led them, tunneling through the barrier woods. Wynn watched in awe as again and again he bit and licked its altered life into retreat. The sun had nearly cleared the treetops when the last bramble curled away before Chap. Wynn stepped out behind him through a patch of enormous verdant ferns with fronds reaching up taller than her head.
She emerged at a clearing's edge where the ground was covered in soft emerald grass. Here and there patches of darker moss were thick and spongy. At the center was a domicile elm as wide and massive as any oak or cedar in Crijheâiche. Beside its curtained opening sat a stool and a basket filled with white lumps. A small brook gurgled across the clearing several paces beyond the tree.
At the water's edge, a slender woman perched upon a wide saffron cushion. With her back turned, she did not notice the visitors.
Bright sunlight turned her hair nearly white, and its long glossy tresses hung forward over one caramel-colored shoulder. The folds of her shimmering wrap were pulled down, and she was naked to the waist. She washed with a square of tan felt in one narrow hand.
Wynn thought she saw lighter scars in the skin of the woman's back, as if she had been clawed by an animal long ago.
As the majay-hì wormed around Wynn and into the clearing, Chap hesitantly stepped across the green.
The woman paused and turned just a little. White-blond hair slipped from her shoulder and swung down her back almost to the cushion. She set down the felt and pulled up her wrap. Chap barked loudly and ran forward, and the woman whirled to her feet, even taller than Wynn had first guessed.
Wynn had seen elven women both here and on her continent, but none like this one.
Her face was triangular like all elves', though its long angles swept in soft curves down to a narrow jaw and chin. Her skin was flawless but for the scars Wynn had seen. White-blond eyebrows swept out and up above her temples like downy feathers upon her brow. A long delicate nose ended above a small mouth a shade darker than her skin.
Her almond-shaped eyes were large, even for her own kind.
She did not seem quite real.
"Chap?" the woman said.
He scurried to her side and rubbed into her legs a bit too hard. She crouched down and lifted an uncertain hand under his muzzle. Chap twisted his head to drag her palm and long fingers over his face.
This was Leesil's mother—Nein'a—Cuirin'nên'a, as her own people called her.
Wynn found it difficult to see her as one of the Anmaglâhk, spy and assassin, let alone a traitor to her caste or people. And Nein'a did not appear to be imprisoned.
She finally looked up at Wynn. An instant of surprise passed over her fine features before she turned with narrow-eyed suspicion to study the surrounding trees. The majay-hì spread across the green, sniffing about, and their ease in her glade seemed to calm her.
Wynn approached cautiously, uncertain how she would be received.
Nein'a stood, looking down upon the sage.
"How does a human come here?" she said in Belaskian. "And where did you find this dog?"
Beneath cold demand was an unsteady quiver in her voice.
"I came with Chap," Wynn said, "as did Leesil. He is here among your people, trying to find you… and free you."
Nein'a blinked once as her expression flattened. "That is not possible. He would not be allowed among the an'Cróan… no more than you would, girl!"
Wynn had not expected such cold and sharp words from her, though Nein'a had been alone for a long time.
"Chap brought us through the mountains. Sgäile came to escort us by the request of Most Aged Father. I swear to…"
At the patriarch's name, fear washed through Nein'a's beautiful face. It was quickly replaced b
y something coldly vicious as she peered again into the trees around the clearing.
"Get out!" she snapped at Wynn. "Do not bring Leesil here. Take him from this land while you still can."
Wynn was shocked into silence until Chap's voice scratched in her mind.
She must come now, before pursuit catches us all.
Wynn stepped closer to Nein'a. "Come with us. Chap and I can hide you. I will get Leesil and Magiere from Crijheäiche, and we—"
"Leesil is among the Anmaglâhk?" Nein'a cut her off. "You are all fools… rabbits who crawl into a den of wolves! How did you even find my prison?"
Before Wynn could sort out answers, her stomach rolled at Chap's words.
No more time for this —we leave now!
Wynn swallowed down nausea under Nein'a's wary gaze and then gestured at Chap and the other majay-hì.
"He brought me… and they led him. They can bring us back. But you have to come. There are others pursuing us, and we do not know how close they are."
Nein'a looked away. "What makes you think I could leave… not having done so in the long time I have been here?"
"Of course you can leave," Wynn insisted. "There are no walls, and Chap knows the way."
He barked once as his leaf-wing voice began to rise again.
"I heard you the first time!" Wynn snapped at him. "Keep quiet for a moment!"
Nein'a frowned at them both.
Wynn had no time to explain, and all Nein'a heard was Chap's agitated bark in reply.
Nein'a shook her head. "I am cut off, girl. I can no more walk the forest than you. It rejects me. If I step beyond the clearing, I am lost… wandering until I am quickly retaken and returned to his place. Do you think I have not tried?"
Wynn did not understand this. Every elf she had met was at home in this great forest and none suffered the confusion it pressed upon her.
"Trust me, or at least Chap," she urged. "He can lead us back."
Lily remained close by. In two steps, Chap brushed heads with her and tossed his nose toward the tall ferns. Lily yipped and the pack elder echoed her. All the majay-hì began to gather.
Nein'a watched them, but her large eyes kept drifting warily about the clearing, as if searching for some assurance. She sighed and scratched Chap's head.
"I have nothing to lose. But not so for you, girl, when we are caught."
"Just keep your eyes on Chap and the others. The forest cannot make them shift in your mind like it does with its own flora."
Chap led the way with Nein'a following, and Wynn fell in behind with Lily as the majay-hì swarmed around them. They stepped through the giant ferns and down the channel that Chap had created in the barrier woods.
"It took us all night to reach you," Wynn said, "but Chap and the pack know where to go. We still have a long trek ahead."
Nein'a did not answer, and seemed overly disturbed by the barrier woods, as if she had never seen it before.
Wynn tried to understand what the woman must feel, trapped alone for eight years. It would take longer than a few steps for Nein'a to accept she was free.
Another patch of tall ferns appeared ahead, blocking the path. Wynn didn't remember ferns at the passage entrance, only its exit into the clearing. But she put her faith in Chap's clearer perception as they stepped through the fronds.
Wynn stood on the clearing's edge with Nein'a's domicile elm at the green lawn's center.
Nein'a huffed. "Now do you see?"
"Whenever you try to leave, you just end up back here?" Wynn asked.
"No…" Nein'a answered. "I have thrice wandered, lost in the outer forest, only to be captured again. This is the first time I returned directly to my prison. But I have never before had anyone try to lead me out."
Wynn was not listening closely. She was too preoccupied, spreading the tall ferns with her hands to peer back down the passage through the tangled woods.
"I did not know the forest had thickened outside," Nein'a continued. "It has been years since I last tried to leave. Perhaps it is a new safeguard placed by Aoishenis-Ahâre… since my son's return."
The title caught Wynn's attention. It was not Most Aged Father but the Fay who had raised the barrier woods. And Nein'a's misconception suggested something more.
Most Aged Father had some hand in cutting the woman off from the forest, leaving her susceptible to its bewildering influence. If that were so…
Wynn grew more wary and mimicked Nein'a's study of the surrounding trees. How much influence did Most Aged Father wield over this land, let alone its people?
* * * *
Most Aged Father wormed his awareness through the forest. He drifted from tree to bush to vine as he followed Fréthfâre. Though he watched her run hard through the night without pause, he worried that she would not catch Léshil in time.
He slipped ahead and came upon Sgäile and his procession, pushing on with just as much speed. Most Aged Father clung to his calm, watching as they ran past. His awareness caught for an instant on the one called Magiere.
Before this woman's arrival, countless decades had passed since he had looked upon any human. Of those he remembered, not one breed matched her white skin and black hair. There was something wrong about her—more than just the flawed nature of a human.
The sun had risen, glinting off the crimson shimmers in her hair.
Most Aged Father raced on, but his awareness halted in a cedar strangled by blackberry vines growing all the way up into its branches. A lingering prickle within its living wood stung his mind.
Many years had passed since a majay-hì or a clhuassas had come close enough to his home for him to feel their difference from the forest's mundane creatures. They shied from him, and even sensed his presence slipping through the forest's growth. But here in this tree, in these newly grown brambles, he felt it…
The same lingering touch as in the descendants of the born-Fay. What did this mean?
Most Aged Father drifted within the barrier woods, as if the very walls of his own home had been altered while he had slumbered. His panic mounted.
Footsteps approached in the outer forest. He slipped away, burrowing inward toward Cuirin'nên'a's clearing.
* * * *
The farther north they ran, the more desperate Sgäile became.
He had never seen the prison glade of Cuirin'nên'a, though most longstanding anmaglâhk knew its location. A select few chosen only by Fréthfâre went regularly to check upon Cuirin'nên'a's needs. At the inception of her internment, some expressed concern for her well-being in isolation. Most Aged Father assured them that he would be aware of her needs—or if and when more was required for her. Fréthfâre held firm to limiting contact, and none but those she chose ever went to Cuirin'nên'a.
At the start of this pursuit, Sgäile did not believe Wynn and Chap could reach her before they were caught. The majay-hì might, but not with a small woman slowing them down. Then he had seen their tracks halt, and Wynn's boot prints vanished amid the hoof marks of a sentinel deer.
That a human rode a clhuassas, like some servant animal, was sickening. The sun had risen, and Sgäile knew the prison glade was not far off.
Someone called out from behind him.
Brot'ân'duivé was the first to halt and turn. As if summoned by Sgäile's heated thoughts, Fréthfâre came at a run up the path behind them.
Haggard and panting, she stopped near Én'nish and her two comrades. Fréthfâre's face dripped with sweat that matted her hair against her forehead.
"Turn back… by word… of Most Aged…" she gasped out, hands braced on her knees. "Do not go farther!"
Sgäile tensed in confusion. "I have oath of guardianship to fulfill, and the retrieval of a human wandering our land."
"No one goes near the traitor," Fréthfâre insisted.
This was the second time in Sgäile's life that he was ordered to violate the ways of his people. The first had been when he was sent to kill a half-blood, also marked as a traitor.
&n
bsp; None of his people, the an'Cróan, would willingly spill the blood of their own. But the Anmaglâhk obeyed the direct wishes of Most Aged Father. Only the presence of a majay-hì and the half-blood's ignorance of his own people had justified Sgäile's disobedience.
Brot'ânduivé spoke evenly. "Why would Most Aged Father force this upon Sgäilsheilleache's and those he has chosen to share his purpose?"
"What now?" Magiere spoke up.
Through his fatigue and strain, Sgäile had forgotten that neither Léshil nor Magiere understood Elvish.
"We have been ordered to return," he answered in Belaskian, "by Most Aged Father."
Anger spread on Magiere's sweat-glistened white face. Léshil took two steps down the path toward Fréthfâre.
"I don't serve your master," he said. "Go back on your own!"
"Wait!" Brot'ân'duivé snapped, and stepped between them.
"Get out of my way!" Léshil demanded.
Magiere turned from Fréthfâre, but Sgäile was not sure if her eyes were on Léshil or Brot'ân'duivé.
"Why am I forced into shame?" Sgäile demanded, keeping to Belaskian in the hope that it might distract his angered charges a little longer. "You trap me between caste and people with no way to serve both."
"Nothing is greater than service to the caste," Fréthfâre returned. "That is our service to the people. In silence and in shadows… obey!"
Én'nish stepped closer to Fréthfâre, a new eagerness washing over her sharp features.
"No," Brot'ân'duivé commanded.
Én'nish's two companions—and Osha—stood with attention shifting between Brot'ân'duivé and Fréthfâre. Like Sgäile, they were at a loss as to who had the greater authority here between Most Aged Father's trusted counselor and a revered master among the Anmaglâhk. Én'nish's allegiance was clear. Fréthfâre remained certain of her position, and her words were only formally polite.
"You disagree with our father, Greimasg'äh? You question my place as Covârleasa?"
"Yes," Brot'ân'duivé answered. "When it is used against our people."
Sgäile did not know what to do when he heard this. Brot'ân'duivé had not only rejected Fréthfâre's position, he had denounced it—and that of Most Aged Father. Sgäile found himself in an untenable situation and wanted no part of this.