The Grove (Guardians of Destiny)

by Jean Johnson

  His matter-of-fact attitude was somewhat reassuring, but Saleria still felt a little odd about the situation. While kissing him, she had only been aware of Aradin, not Teral. It was only when that awareness came back to her that things had felt awkward. Unlike her previous worries, however, a new one had surfaced.

  “What if he doesn’t like being shut out?” Saleria found herself asking. “Is that honestly fair to him? I mean, yes, he’s technically no longer alive, and it’s not his body . . . but he does have a life of sorts. I guess . . .” She frowned and picked at some of the moss growing between them, trying to order her thoughts as well as her words. “It’s not fair to expect the woman to have to deal with two men at once, one always constantly there and watching, but is it at all fair for the man and the woman to expect the watcher to have to leave, to . . . ah . . . never know intimacy, even if it’s only secondhand? Not that I’m advocating he, uh . . . I mean . . .”

  (Give me the body and I’ll tell her myself,) Teral offered.

  (I’m too comfortable to move,) Aradin grumbled. He moderated his complaint with an extension of that thought. (Besides, this is part and parcel of her complaint. Here—tell her much more directly.) Unfolding one arm, he reached over and covered Saleria’s fingers with his own. “Here. Let Teral tell you himself, directly.”

  “Directly?” Saleria asked.

  (Yes, directly,) she heard the lighter-voiced, older Witch say in her mind. Gasping, she started to pull away, but Aradin tightened his grip, keeping her close physically. Teral, however, was the one to reassure her verbally. (This is just a part of our holy magics—and no, it does not break the Laws of God and Man that state how the thoughts of mortals are our last bastion of privacy, and that there shall never be a spell to peer into the head of another living mortal.)

  “It . . . it’s not?” she asked, blinking in confusion. “But I thought . . .”

  “The Gods have decreed that no living mortal may read the mind of another living mortal,” Aradin told her, gently squeezing her fingers. “But Guides are no longer alive, for all that I have given Teral a semblance of life.”

  (If you think of it another way, there is no way that I could be a Guide, residing within my Host, if we could not share our thoughts,) Teral added, silencing her next question. (And I do not do this lightly, nor casually. It is holy magic, and as such, should not be profaned by carelessness or malice, or other ill intentions. I do this to reassure you directly, with no lies between us, that I will accept any request you make to have me step into the Dark whenever you wish to be intimate with my Host. It is his life, and no longer mine.)

  Aradin could hear what Teral was saying to her because Teral willed him to hear it. But Aradin could not share his thoughts with her, which left him with mere speech. “The choice is yours, Saleria. But I will be completely honest with you. Teral is now my closest friend . . . and like all closest friends, I’d be inclined to discuss any relationship I may enter into with him, to ask for advice, to offer a moment of humor, to seek sympathy over a misunderstanding or a mistake. I would try to refrain if you asked . . . but would you honestly refrain from discussing such details with your own best, closest friend?”

  At his words, a face flashed into her thoughts, nut-brown and heart-shaped, with hazel eyes, tight dark curls, and flashing white teeth frequently bared in a smile. Saleria hadn’t thought about Aslyn in weeks, but she did remember how close she and her fellow acolyte had been, back during their temple training. They still wrote to each other, with Daranen keeping Aslyn’s letters separate from the constant stream of petitions so that Saleria could answer them in her spare time, rather than assume it was meant for some prayer.

  Aslyn was now a full-fledged Priestess, not just a Deacon, but her assigned parish and chapel were far to the south. And in her most recent letter, she did talk about the romance budding between her and one of the local landholders, and I wrote back to her with some comments and encouragements I felt I could add, Saleria acknowledged. “I suppose that’s fair. That you can talk to each other. But . . . watch?”

  Both men consulted on a swift, subconscious level. Ideally, she would be a woman who could accept the presence of both Host and Guide as a constant in her life . . . but if they pressed that point now, she would resist automatically. The idea was too foreign, too strange; only time would allow her to observe, to think, and to come to a true, rather than a hasty, decision. Aradin sighed and sat up, drawing up his beige-clad knees. Resting his forearms on them, he tipped his head at the rest of their surroundings.

  “As much as this debate could go on a bit longer—and should, at an appropriate time—you and I do have more work to do today. Such as figuring out where I can work within this dome so that it doesn’t disrupt your tasks as the Keeper, but doesn’t put me in an awkward spot.” He nodded at the nearest moss-covered lump. “Having seen several of your Katani chapels and cathedrals, I can only presume those eight large lumps are moss-covered altars. Yes?”

  Saleria blinked, looked around, then nodded. “Yes . . . yes, they are. I don’t use them in my daily routine, and neither did Jonder. We just kneel in the center, face the direction that corresponds with the season—north for summer, west for autumn, and so forth—and pray. I guess that’s why they’ve been covered over by moss. I mean, I knew they were altars, but I never bothered to strip away the moss. I guess I was thinking that the moss was just one more part of the Grove as a whole.”

  “Then there goes the idea of using some of them for my research needs. I don’t think Holy Kata or Holy Jinga would mind if we cleared off the moss,” he said dryly, “but it would probably be sacrilege to clutter their tops with beakers and retorts, and a mortar-and-pestle or three.”

  Saleria felt her cheeks grow warm. “I feel a touch of shame for letting things get to this state. All of it, really. The . . . the complacency, the blind obedience to habit and routine.” She ducked her head. “I’m really not the best of Keepers.”

  Reaching over, Aradin tucked his finger under her chin, lifting her face so that he could gaze into those blue gray eyes. “Teral and I both disagree on that. You may not have seen or done anything about these problems in the past, but you are doing something about them now, and you’re not letting the traditions, habits, and routines chain everything in place. If you were anything less than the best, you’d probably cling to tradition out of uncertainty or fear, but you’re willing to embrace a different way. Teral says life is about change, after all.”

  “True,” she admitted, taking some comfort in his words. She looked at him, her mouth twisting in a lopsided smile. “I feel like that old tale of the priestess being awakened with a kiss. I was asleep in the blindness of my duties, and you’ve woken me up.”

  “Then I shall continue to kiss you, to keep you awake,” Aradin promised. Leaning in close, he pressed his lips to her cheek, then pulled back. “But we really do have work to do.” Pushing to his feet, he offered her his hand, and when she stood at his side, squinted up toward the half-clouded sky. “There’s the sun, so . . . that way is north, in this hemisphere—I kept getting all turned around the first few times I tried traveling below the Sun’s Belt. I’m better at it these days, but there’s a part of my brain that says the sun should travel through the south part of the sky, not the north . . . But since it does, and that way is north . . . then this southwestern corner here looks like it has a flat spot free of sap-pools, and it lies mostly out of your way, yes?”

  Eyeing the spot he pointed to, Saleria gauged it in her mind against her daily routine, and shook her head. “That would do for me, but the southeastern spot is a bit more roomy. You just have to avoid that cream-dripping vine there, and it forms a sort of L-shaped area, see?”

  Following her arm and finger, Aradin studied the subtly terraced area, and nodded. “That should work, yes. I may have to put up a screen to remind myself not to back up into the range of the drips, but it should do
nicely. Moss off the altars first?”

  “That moss may be saturated with sap below the topmost layers. We should use protective spells,” she warned him.

  He grinned in approval. “Now you’re thinking like a Hortimancer. Our clothes are warded, but we should use gloves, too. I’ll have Teral fetch out a couple pairs from my gardening supplies. Mine might be a little big for you, but better too big than too small.”

  * * *

  Removing the moss from the first few of the eight altars led to removing it from around their bases. That in turn revealed a series of flagstone-and-pebble paths. Some of the stones were broad and mostly flat, if a bit worn by countless footfalls from the past; many more were tiny, naturally colored, laid in intricate designs: circles and arcs and diamonds and lines, all packed tightly into a sandy base that was as sap-soaked as Aradin had predicted.

  The fumes released when they started stripping away the masses of moss from the ground made both of them a little giddy, but an aeration charm helped avert the worst of the effects. Saleria had to stop every so often to attend to her regular duties, but that didn’t stop Aradin from working hard. The worst trouble was figuring out a way to dispose of the moss.

  Most of the magic could be sucked out by the crystal-topped pruning staves . . . but that filled them up more quickly and brightly than either mage expected. It also left a thick, sticky residue in the soft green tufts. Finally, for lack of a better solution, Aradin tried burning the stuff. With Saleria’s permission, he used most of the stored energies to focus the fire and purify the fumes, burning it in a hot, bright sphere until nothing but white ash remained.

  That did the trick. After a hearty lunch, and while Saleria focused on her prayer-petitions, Aradin focused on spell-raking up the moss from the underlying stones, draining the power with the spare staves, and searing the sap from the ground. More welled up as he worked, however, revealing the moss had somehow kept the stuff from seeping from the ground all the way to the topmost layers. It did prove his theory, though, that the sap-purified magic had soaked deeply into the ground over the last two hundred years.

  (Enough,) Teral finally stated, when three altar platforms and paths toward the center proved to be on the edge of what Aradin could keep up with, containment-wise. (Don’t clear anything else. You need a break, and you need to go to the New Brother festival. I’ll stay and work on this mess.)

  Carefully wiping the sweat from his face with his Witchcloak sleeve, since his Hortimancer gloves were stained despite their protective spells, Aradin gave in with a nod. (It’s not going as well as I’d hoped. We can wither the moss with the staves, but we need to come up with a way to burn off the sap faster than it wells up from the ground. Maybe a system of . . . of candles, of sorts . . . like an oil-lamp wick . . .)

  (Enough!) Teral softened the order with a mental chuckle, and a mental hand on his Host’s shoulder. (Give over the body, youngling, and get going. You’re not the only one who can cure this problem; I do have a few ideas of my own. The sap that hasn’t yet burned has simply pooled up around the sand-packed stones, but it isn’t overflowing or going anywhere, so it isn’t an immediate threat. Let me handle it, and get yourself to the festival.)

  Nodding again, Aradin turned to glance at Saleria. She was still resting on top of the—thankfully dry—moss at the center of the Bower, her hands resting palm-up on her crossed legs, the neatly penned petition papers laid out before her. Her voice had filled his ears with the steady, heartfelt recitations, invoking the holy names and aspects of Jinga and Kata which most closely aligned with each petitioned request. For all it was mental and emotional work, not physical, she had worked up a faint sheen of sweat from her fervent efforts.

  He rested as he waited, leaning on the staff in his hands, until she came to an end with the current prayer. The moment she shifted forward to shift the papers into a stack to one side, he cleared his throat. Lifting her head, Saleria craned her neck, looking back over her shoulder at him. “. . . Yes?”

  “I thought you should know that Teral’s kicking me out. I’m off to the festival,” he told her. “He’ll keep working on the sap-soaked problem, but this is all we can clear for now.” It wasn’t the most coherent explanation he could have given, but from her nod, she seemed to understand. Nodding himself, he carefully set the staff on a thick, dry-topped patch of moss, then pulled the folds of his cloak down over hands and face, allowing it to envelop his body.

  Releasing control of his body was much like releasing control of his balance. With a mental side step to avoid Teral as the older Witch moved forward, he fell back into the Doorway, turned, and strode into the Dark. Teral took over their shared flesh, reshaping it into his own, but Aradin did not stay to watch what happened next over his mentor’s mental shoulder.

  Unlike the sunlit warmth of the Grove, with its open skies, abundant greenery, and solid reality, the place between Life and the Afterlife was a cold, dark, echoing realm. Hard ground, barely seen in the gloom, scraped underfoot as he moved. A chilling mist shifted in the distance, rippling with hints of not-here and not-there. There was no clear light-source at this end of the Dark, though he could sense and half-see at the corners of his eyes the slender, silvery ribbon that bound him to his Doorway. The rest of the light illuminating his immediate vicinity came partly from Aradin himself, and partly from Brother and Sister Moons, a gift to Their long-vanished Elder Brother. It was just enough to see the barren ground, and a few lengths in any direction, but little more than that.

  At least, right here, right outside his Door. Just like the wielding of magic, willpower was what gave him light, strength, and direction in the faceless, placeless Dark. Tightening his focus as he would have tightened a fist, Aradin concentrated, willing himself toward the Meeting Tree. Four, five, six swift steps into the mist brought him through the swirling wall and into a slightly brighter patch of moonlight . . . and into a place where he was no longer alone.

  The light of Elder Brother Moon shone down on the Meeting Tree, one of the few places where Darkhan’s light could shine anymore. It played down among the branches of the gnarled, graceful, flower-laden thing, each twig made out of metal, each blossom and leaf carved from precious stones. It sat in a large square planter carved from pale stone and ringed with redwood benches. The colors were dim but still discernible, jade and malachite leaves, mother-of-pearl petals, and little slivers of amber for the stamens and carpels. It also stood more than twice his height, which meant it rose up above the two dozen or so bodies gathered around its base, ensuring it remained visible and recognizable to all who used it as a waypoint in the directionless void of the Dark.

  He had no idea who had first conjured this tree and its moonlit benches, nor how long ago, nor even what kept it here, a permanent fixture in a fixtureless place, but it was a most welcome sight. As were the smiles on the faces that turned to see who approached. Several of the men and women murmured his name, or simple greetings if they weren’t quite sure of who he was. Each reached out with hands that ranged from younger and stronger than his to older and more wrinkled than Alaya’s had been at her passing. He clasped them in turn with a stretch of his own, muttering a greeting here, a name there, enjoying the shock of living warmth against his skin in the intangible but still present chill of the void.

  More approached as he settled into a spot near the edge of the group. Aradin turned to greet them, welcoming his brother and sister Witches. Each newcomer made the air warmer, the light a little brighter, until one of the eldest Sister Witches lifted both hands in the air, above her age-stooped back. “A place! A place! We need a place to meet and to worship! . . . Carradin Ruper, you choose the place!”

  She asked it of one of the younger male Witches on the other side of the group. Aradin had arrived early enough to witness the night’s selection. Rising a little on his toes, he could just see the younger man opening and closing his mouth in indecision, before the short-haired blond
finally shrugged and said, “The Garden Lake?”

  “The Garden Lake it is!” the eldest agreed, hands tightening into brief fists. Dropping her arms from overhead, Witch Brenna held them out to either side. Her voice was still strong, if a little roughened with her advanced age. It echoed over the crowd as two score and more approached, pressing near. “You know the rules; three stay to guide the rest, and the rest of us on our way!”

  It had been a while since he last volunteered to wait and guide the rest, but Aradin didn’t want to stay away from Teral, Saleria, or the Katani Holy Grove for long. Clasping hands with a middle-aged, dark-haired woman on his right, and a gray-bearded man on his left, he focused on the Garden Lake and followed the line of people as they snaked into the mists at the edge of the Meeting Tree space.

  This garden was no twisted nightmare of a place—and he carefully kept the memories of the Grove locked down out of the way, to keep it safe. Within three, maybe four steps through the dark mists, he emerged with the rest on a long, sloping lawn bathed in silvery light. It led down to a vast lake that rippled with silvery streaks of moonlight—full moons, from both the larger Brother and the smaller Sister, despite it being the new of Brother Moon in the real world. Bushes lined the lawn, and benches provided resting places.

  This was a vast area, larger than a village commons and filled with details as crisp as those found in real life, rather than blurred by uncertainty. They weren’t the only ones there, though; other spirits, a handful of lost souls, had made their way to the lake. Once fully onto the lawn and with a good four or five emerged behind him, Aradin released the hands on either side. He studied the blurred images, the fading senses of “self” that had once been living people, and counted the heads of the Witches who moved toward them.