by Jean Johnson
“There you are,” her housekeeper said. “I was just about to wake you, since Daranen has already come down for breakfast.” She frowned at Saleria. “I’m not sure it was wise, but I agreed to let you sleep in while that man took your morning walk around the Grove wall. I hope I haven’t made a grievous mistake.”
Saleria smiled; her mood was too good for anything less, given her leisurely start to the day. “I’m sure he’ll be just fine. I think—”
The back door at the far end of the hall opened. Saleria gave up what she had meant to say, instead hurrying down the last few steps so she could see what condition her new partner was in. To her surprise, the man stepping into the house had the tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired visage of Teral, not the slightly shorter, leaner, blond Aradin. She smiled at him all the same.
“Good morning, Teral. And good morning to your Host, too,” she added politely, guessing that either Aradin was somewhere inside the older man, watching and listening, or that he would return shortly. Oddly enough, the scent of mint wafted into the hall, mixing with the spiced fruit sausage and the egg-toast Nannan had made. “How did the morning round go?”
“Some sort of horned, rabbity thing with willow leaves instead of fur,” he recited, counting off on his fingers, “a swarm of bees acting rather agitated in what turned out to be a patch of rage-inducing bleeding hearts, a new species of ambulatory orchid-beetles, and a rather aggressively friendly cross between a fern and a mint plant. Either that, or it was attempting to copulate with me. For our sanity’s sake,” the older Witch muttered, “Aradin and I have agreed to think of it as just being aggressively friendly, and not amatory.”
“Did you drain the northern locus? I forgot to tell you, don’t touch the crystal to the rift,” Saleria added, moving down the hall toward the entrance to the dining hall. The closer she got to him, the stronger the scent of mint became. The stains were subtle, but she thought she could see hints of green along the beige outer layer of his overrobe. “Do you need Nannan to wash your Witchcloak?”
“Yes, I drained it carefully; no, we’ve agreed to go see the laundress in town, since we have far too much laundry at the moment to burden your kind housekeeper with it; and no, you didn’t tell either of us, but Aradin did watch you do it, advised me on the care you took, and thus we avoided it adroitly. The Witchcloak is supposed to be self-cleaning, but sometimes it does require a little scrubbing. We’ll have the laundress look at it, too. If you’ll excuse me, miladies,” Teral added politely, lifting callused hands that showed a few signs of scratch marks, “I also tangled with some sort of rose hybrid while clearing the outer path, and will need to wash up before breakfast.”
Giving both women a slight bow, he turned to the right, not the left, and ducked into the downstairs refreshing room. Behind Saleria, Nannan sighed. Curious, she turned and lifted her brows at her housekeeper.
“He’s so handsome . . . but it’s so weird, that he’s technically dead,” Nannan confessed. She flipped a hand and shook her head. “I’m not sure I could stand getting involved with him, when he’s also . . .”
“Also what? Also Aradin? Also dead? Also not . . .” She cut herself off before she could say, Also not interested in you? It would not have been kind, however true, as far as she knew. Saleria shook it off. “You know, you can look at him all you like, and become friends with him—with Teral—but try to understand that in doing so, you must accept and become friends with Aradin, too . . . because wherever Teral goes, whatever Teral does or sees, Aradin is right there watching it all. I suggest you start trying to be friends with both sides of the Darkhanan, since he is going to be here for quite some time, praise Kata and Jinga . . . and Darkhan and Dark Ana.”
“I do realize that, now,” Nannan grumbled. “I’m not happy, but I realize it.” She fluttered her hands at Saleria. “Off to breakfast with you before your scribe eats it all—I’ll bring you some freshly grilled egg-toast, if nothing else.”
“Thank you, Nannan,” Saleria told her, heading for the dining room.
* * *
Aradin had forgotten about his note to himself from the previous night. It was a good thing he had written it down, too. Expanding the crystal tablet until it was the size of a large chalkboard—almost as big as the bed they had slept in together—he showed Saleria what his samplings of the aether and the plants of the Grove had revealed to him yesterday. With the additional samples taken during his morning walk, three patterns emerged clearly, one per locus tree.
“As you can see here, the energies build up and ripple around the triangle—you always drain the north locus tree, the east one, and the south one in that order, right? So the energy always has a dip in it that is traveling sunwise around the garden . . . and that means the energy always has a peak as well, just before you drain one of its contributors,” he explained.
“Just one problem with that. The direction you’re gesturing is counter-sunwise,” Saleria said, tapping the sketched map of the Grove with its three giant trees coming together in the Bower at the center, and line-sketches for the paths and other major terrain features. “The sun actually travels the other way across the northern part of the sky. You tell me it moves sunwise, and I think it’ll move like this, not that.”
Aradin frowned at her as she demonstrated, frowned at the tablet map, then squinted up at the sky. He sighed roughly. “Well, forgive me for being born north of the Sun’s Belt, where the sun travels across the south half of the sky. Clocks were invented in ancient Aiar, and they all go around the same way wherever you are in the world, so we’ll call it clockwise, yes?”
“Thank you,” she allowed. “That’ll be far less confusing for me to remember. So this wave of magical energy traveling clockwise through the Grove, that’s what’s causing the mutations?”
“Some of it, yes. Some of it comes from the sap saturating the ground. Now, the good news is, I think we can tap into the magical sap, transmute and cleanse it alchemically, and burn it off. It does require the construction of Permanent magics, but we can at least get started with some temporary usage—you always have prayer petitions for rain or drought or such, right?”
“Yes, but those come in cycles that are unpredictable,” she told him. Saleria gestured at the mossy spot where she usually prayed, in the center of the Bower. “If we build a Permanent magic, it will constantly be raining in the deserts of northern Katan, and dry as dust along the southwestern hills.”
“You’re thinking of a Katani faucet, which is plugged by a cork. Unplug it, and you cannot control the flow of water through the pipe,” Aradin said. “I’m thinking of a spell-controlled lever that opens and shuts from a trickle to a gush and back, depending upon the incoming need. We could use spells to control which regions get what they need in what quantity needed, based on the number of petitions for that area. That’s a long-term plan of course, but for now . . . maybe just build a radiant crystal to bless the land of Katan with good health? Teral tells me that’s a common use of Fountain energies, and it’s quite clear the Grove’s foliage is quite healthy and abundant. Warped, but abundant.”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to go warping the farmlands around Groveham, let alone the rest of the nation,” Saleria stated, hands going to her hips. She flipped one at the tablet map. “If I wanted that, I’d not renew the wards on the Grove walls each night. How can we stop that effect from happening?”
“That’s where my note to myself comes in,” he told her. “See, the Bower acts as a focusing effect for the untamed energies of the Fountain-rifts in each locus tree. You call yourself the Guardian of the Grove . . . but according to what Teral remembers of what his Guide Alaya said about her Guide’s Guide, who served the Witch Guardian, you’re not actually in control of any of the rifts, because you’re not attuned to them. You access all the energy from here in the Bower, and only collect it at each locus tree.”
Saleria blinked a couple times, distracted by trying
to figure out the relationship string he used. She figured it out after a few seconds by placing Teral as Aradin’s “father” and Teral’s own Guide when he was a living Host as Aradin’s “grandmother” . . . which placed the Guide’s Guide as Aradin’s great-great-grandparent. Then the rest of what he had said caught up with her. “I’m . . . what? Not in control?”
“You’re not attuned. You cannot tap into it directly,” Aradin explained to her. “The Bower is attuned to all three rifts, and you are attuned to the Bower, but not to any of the rifts. Unfortunately, while the magic from any one locus tree rift could be handled by a reasonably strong mage such as one of the three of us, all three at once would be too strong for any single mage I personally know of, and would be a challenge even for our greatest Witch pairing.”
“So what’s the point?” Saleria asked him. “If I am attuned to the Bower, why should I worry about the locus rifts?”
“Control. Direct control of the energies, and their overflow spill. See, all these limbs and tree roots converge to form the Bower, yes? But they’re not the whole of each locus tree. These branches and roots are end-points that build up in energies,” Aradin showed her, tapping the crystal map, which started lighting up at key points around the Grove. “Much of it flows back toward the trunk and either spills into the hollow where the rift is, requiring it to be collected, or it gets siphoned into the Bower, where it collects and condenses as sap.
“But some of it pushes through the bark and the leaves, causing local eddies in the overall wave of energy. Possibly through some damage to the tree, leaking magic as a wound would leak blood, or leaking sap, or both sap and magic, since it does get converted.”
“I see—that is where the mutations take place, in the convergence of the greater wave and the little eddies. A drop of magic-imbued sap lands on a foraging insect, which eats a plant soaked in ground-sap, and the next thing you know, we have a crossover between a buttercup flower and a stag beetle, yes?” she asked.
Aradin nodded. “Add in the wave being at its crest, or perhaps at its trough in certain circumstances, and you have just enough energy to push a mutation. Particularly if the affected target gets hit more than once over the span of a week or so. But we can take control of these energies—if we take control of the rifts.”
“‘We’?” Saleria asked, lifting her brows. She wished she could arch just one to convey her skepticism, but that was the best she could do. “Aren’t you geased by your oathbinding not to take over the energies of the Grove?”
“Teral and I did not swear that in our oath,” Aradin reminded her. “We are oathbound not to steal the energies of the Grove, but doing so with your permission as Keeper is not stealing them.”
He had her there. Choosing to be amused by his law-sayer’s cleverness rather than annoyed, she shook it off. “Right, then. I always wondered why I couldn’t do much more than I’ve already been doing—and not just because of my busy schedule. I’ve sometimes had a little free time to experiment, but I never made any progress on improving things.”
“Yes . . . The drawback to the Bower’s design is that it is easy to attune to, easy enough that even a medium-powered mage could tap into some of its energies,” Aradin warned her. “If I’ve configured these power flow spells right, the lower-strength the mage and the less energy they tap into, the more of the concentrated sap will be produced. The stronger the mage, the more energy is used, the less the sap flows.
“If you can attune to at least one of the rifts, that will reduce the sap-flow. If I can attune as well, that will reduce it significantly, since between your prayers here in the Bower and our efforts to restore the Grove, we should be able to use up most of what the three rifts produce . . . and if Teral can attune separately to the third one, then we will be able to not only control the excess energies, we will be able to burn off the sap saturating the ground, restore the Grove section by section, and craft Permanent magics to continue to harvest and use up the energies spilling into the aether.”
Saleria considered his words. She wasn’t so sure about the Permanent magics, since that was not an area of expertise for her; she had never been interested in Artifact construction, and not very good at it. Barely good enough to pass the required basic classes, in fact. As she pondered the problem, her gaze fell upon his workbenches, narrow tables hauled in from the town and set up between two of the no-longer-moss-covered altars near the southeast corner. The middle table was bare, but the left held a collection of beakers, flasks, and other implements of the Alchemist’s trade, and cutting and pruning tools on the right table.
Between her and those tables were three pools, each with a vine or two hanging low enough to cross her vision with their verdant, sap-oozing tendrils. The combination reminded her of something he had said. “I think . . . I think it would be more useful to use the saps as they actually are. To use them to make concentrated potions. I barely passed my Artifact construction classes, but I wasn’t bad at alchemy. I’m rusty, and probably nowhere up to your level of expertise, but I could make a good assistant. I do like the idea of using unwarped energies to encourage the health and vitality of the surrounding land, but as you yourself said, force-feeding a plant too much magic isn’t healthy for it, so we’ll need to do other things with all these excess energies as well.
“So we should bottle the various saps and experiment to find ways to make use of them . . . and sell them so that I can pay you a decent salary for all your hard work, plus hire a handful more of other Hortimancers and Alchemists—oathbind them to work for the Keeper and the best interest of the Grove and Katan, or something, but that shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange,” she dismissed. “I’ve heard any number of excuses over the last three years about why I couldn’t get a second helper, and the budget has been one of the biggest ones.
“If we make the Grove pay for itself, they’ll have no fiscal objections to make. And with that petition request of yours, approved and prayed over by me, and signed by both sets of Gods, they’ll have no other ground to stand upon for any of the other changes I’ll want to make.” Staring off at the worktable, she nodded firmly at the thought. “That’s what we’ll do. That’s what feels right.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Aradin agreed. “You’re in charge.”
“Even if you and Teral manage to each attune to a rift, outpowering me two-to-one?” Saleria asked.
“You’re still in charge,” he reassured her. “It’s your Grove. We’ll make recommendations, but the ultimate decision is yours.” He watched her brow slowly furrow into a frown. “What’s wrong?”
She sighed, striving to explain it. “I’m not sure, but . . . I guess I’m not used to the whole not having to fight for control over what I want to do with the Grove. I think that’s why I sort of fell asleep, as it were. Fell into the dull-witted acceptance of my traditional routine.” Rubbing at her brow, she tried to shake it off. Honesty prompted her to add, “I’m rather grateful you woke me up to my own rights, even if it’s going to cause both of us a lot of work—speaking of work, I need to get to work on those prayers. Did you want to keep working on this, and see if we can attune me to at least one of the rifts? Or were you going to go handle your laundry first?”
“I’d rather go handle my laundry. We should also consult with the other Guardians via your new mirror,” Aradin added. “Teral says he got the impression from the memories passed down to him that it helps to have a clue on what to do before you try. To be frank, the Grove will still be here tomorrow, but both of us would like clean changes of clothing to greet the new day.”
“Take a bath while you’re at it,” Saleria teased lightly, tapping him on his chest. “Teral worked up a bit of a sweat from the look of him this morning. I’ll be fine on my own while you’re gone . . . and I can cut you the slack, my new, official apprentice, because you let me sleep in this morning.”
Stepping close to him, she looped one a
rm up behind his neck, tugged his head down into range, and kissed him in thanks. It wasn’t their first kiss of the day; they had done so earlier while picking up their staves at the back shed. But it was a nice way to part company. Aradin enjoyed it for a few moments, then hugged her and stepped back.
“Not much more of that, or I might be tempted to profane the Sacred Grove with the sight of our naked hides rolling around on all this moss,” he muttered.
“It’s a marriage Grove; I sincerely doubt They’d mind. The real problem is that we do have work to get done, and only so many hours of daylight in which to do it,” Saleria returned dryly, but let him go. Plans or no plans, there were still plenty of prayer petitions to attend to today.
* * *
“. . .Anything should happen to her, of course, but if something should, then I would be the next Keeper. It’s only logical.”
Aradin stopped in his tracks. He had gathered his spell-cleaned and –dried laundry, paid the bill, tucked the packet back into the Dark for Teral to deal with, and started back toward Saleria’s home, content with his errand and eager to get back to work. But those words were rather out of place, given what he knew of the Keeper’s life.
Twisting, he searched through the plaza for the source of the voice, knowing it had to be nearby. No one was within several lengths of him, however, puzzling the Darkhanan. At least until the same voice, a light tenor, chuckled and replied to an unheard question.
“Well, of course they’d choose me. You have to admit the Prelate is getting on in years, and tending the Grove is very much a young man’s job.”
It came from the tavern, or rather, from an open window in the tavern wall just a few paces away. Aradin could hear the clinking of glasses and cutlery, the murmurs of half a dozen conversations, and a feminine voice fawning over the speaker. Her words weren’t nearly as important as that speaker’s, though.
(That sounds like vain boasting to me,) Teral stated. (Or possibly a potential troublemaker.)