“By the trees,” Osiris whispered to the nearly unconscious Tess. “That weren’t the kind of magic I was asking for. But it’ll do, young one.”
Part II
Chapter 16
at the request of his new companions, Profigliano dutifully charged up Ruby Creek all evening. His strategy was simple: put the old eyes to work and find a safe crossing. Hours later, Profigliano had not lost hope, for he discovered that the farther north he flew, the more waterlogged pines lined the creek’s bank. Finally, as the stars glimmered over the towhee, he observed several such trees that had fallen over the creek, forming a natural bridge.
“Do you see that, blinky stars? That’s what I call a real easy crossing, if you catch my drift.” Profigliano let out a deep chortle as he landed on a willow oak branch. “I wish you blinky stars knew my friend Tess. She just babbled and babbled about how she’d cross this creek.” The chortle developed into chuckle, and the chuckle rolled into raucous laughter. “I gotta tell ya, the whole thing sounded pretty fishy to me.”
At this point, Profigliano was leaning against the trunk of the willow oak, his wings grasping his belly and his eyes shut tight.
Unfortunately, the towhee’s lack of subtlety proved costly. Just a few paces away, on the other side of a smattering of large river rocks, was the campsite of three Atheonian foot soldiers.
“There ain’t nothin’ can rattle my chains worse ’an sittin’ still when there’s fightin’ to be done, gents,” growled Root, a sturdy middle-aged man with black eyebrows and a crooked mouth.
“Better bein’ out ’ere in the woods than back home starvin’ to death,” replied young Grift. “All the aristocrats drinkin’ their fine wine while the rest of us break our arms tillin’ rock and sand. What grows in rock and sand, I’d like to know? Not a blessed thing.” He threw a rock into the fire. Dark shadows danced on his thin face.
The third member of the party was a lieutenant named Pilt. His military cloth belt glowed a bright green across his muscular abdomen. He stood over his inferiors, reviewing an official-looking notebook.
“I’ve heard it said, ‘Complaint is the mark of a coward,’” he remarked.
“I joined this outfit to get human blood on my hands, ’Tenant.” Root grunted at the ground.
Pilt paused, then sighed at the old soldier. Slowly Pilt pulled a small hatchet from a holster on his leg. Root tried to get to his feet, but Pilt lunged and had him by the arm. He lifted the hatchet behind Root’s ear.
“Human blood, you say?” He pressed the sharp edge against Root’s skull. “I’d be happy to accommodate you.”
A thin red stream rolled down Root’s neck as he whimpered. “Don’t cut me ear off, ’Tenant.”
The lieutenant pressed his weapon another hairsbreadth, all the while staring at Grift, daring him to intervene. The younger soldier kept still, his temple twitching as Root moaned.
“Right then.” Pilt removed the hatchet and wiped its blood onto Grift’s sleeve. “We have our orders, and the sooner we complete them, the sooner we can return to the camp. Eh, Grift?”
“Right you are, Lieutenant Pilt.” Grift gritted his teeth as the last of Root’s blood was deposited on his shirt.
“Today was a poor shake. You two get lazier by the minute.” Pilt drew his notebook again and slanted it so that it caught the firelight. “Identified: five ducks, one black fox, and one buck. Ducks were exterminated according to Counselor Pider’s orders. The fox is in our possession”—Pilt gestured casually to a sack leaning against a river rock—“and the buck escaped the power of soldier Grift.”
“Hang on,” Grift protested. “I’d like to see you or Root stay your ground with an eight-pointer about to gore you to shreds.”
“It was an inexcusable blunder,” Pilt said. “We are here to find out whether there will be any defiance from these woods, and that buck was as defiant as they come. Had you captured him, we might be heading back to the front lines right now with valuable information. We’d be spending the night on real cots with coffee in our bellies.”
“What about the fox, ’Tenant? He said he had something for us,” Root said hopefully.
“The fox will take more time. We can’t trust a thing he says.”
Deflated, Root tried to wipe the back of his still-bloody head on Grift’s sleeve, which was met with a violent withdrawal.
“What do you think yer doin’, old man?” hissed Grift. “Try that again and—”
“Quiet, gentlemen,” Pilt said. “Do you hear that?”
The three Atheonians strained their ears as baritone laughter echoed nearby. Lieutenant Pilt grinned.
“Sounds like a big one,” he said, and beckoned them toward the sound.
The three men crept over the tops of the river rocks, peeking through the cracks and keeping their heads low. Seeing movement in the low branches of a willow oak, Pilt motioned for his men to stop.
“Weeeeell, what’s the harm in stoppin’ for one little ole caterpillar? Miss Tessy will be sound asleep by now, and this red-breaster is starving,” said a creature in the willow oak.
“Caterpillars, ’Tenant? Can’t be nothin’ but a bird, sir.” Root looked to Pilt. “I don’t see no point in killin’ the birds, ’Tenant. They bein’ so small.”
“Perhaps it is a clever bear cub, or an eagle with a sensitive stomach. Either way, we will capture it,” Pilt replied. “You’d hardly call Counselor Pider harmless, would you?”
Pilt nodded to Grift, who pulled from his back a peculiar device. At first glance, it looked like a traditional roughly hewn bow and arrow. But the soldier had no quiver—only the one arrow. Grift sifted through a satchel that was slung across his chest and pulled out a bundle of thin rope, which he attached to the shaft near the arrowhead. Readying his bow, Grift fixed the arrow into the drawstring and, crawling on his belly over the crest of the rocks, disappeared toward the bank of the creek.
“Gotcha, you shifty character.” Profigliano spoke to a caterpillar recently snagged from the trunk of the oak. “I hope you told Mrs. Caterpillar you loved her today.” Profigliano chortled, keeping the caterpillar between his claws. Then he paused thoughtfully and said, “Oh, that was a wee-bit heartless of me. I-ya didn’t mean to make things uncomfortable for you, neighbor.”
With a sudden whrrr, Grift’s arrow shot past Profigliano’s left wing, and the towhee was enveloped inside a sailing net. Profigliano lost hold of his snack as he was lifted from his perch. With a soft thud the arrow sank into the ground and Profigliano tumbled helplessly behind.
Grift was the first to arrive where Profigliano had fallen. Pilt and Root followed, while Grift leaned over the rustling net with a steely expression. He grunted. “State yer name and yer purpose in the Hinge, bird.”
“Now, now, now, now,” Profigliano replied, breathless. “Leeet’s not forget that it is you thug bugs who’ve got some answerin’ to do.” Profigliano pressed a defiant eye against a hole in the mesh. “What makes you so sure I don’t have a few golden bubbles up my sleeve? Eh, big boys?”
“’E’s not right in the head, ’Tenant Pilt,” Root observed.
“All the same, he’s a bird in the forest, which means he did not join the counselor, and our orders are to exterminate him.” Pilt leaned forward, peering over Profigliano’s prostrate body. “Unless you somehow got lost, my friend?”
“In a manner of speaking,” the towhee said with an audible gulp.
“Throw him in the creek.” Pilt moved to return to the campsite.
“Pardon me, Lieutenant,” Grift said. “But I made that net with my own hands. Takes a good week to get that kind of craftsmanship, by my buttons.” Grift was looking at Profigliano with apprehension. “Couldn’t we just snap the robin’s neck so’s I can keep my net?”
Several more gulps were heard from the neck in question before Profigliano commented quietly, “I’m a
towhee, if it makes any difference to you, skinny-face.”
“What did you call me?” Grift lifted up the net and shook it violently.
“Just a moment, now, comrades.” Pilt was looking thoughtfully at Profigliano. “’Twas a towhee that flew through our ranks a few days ago. He was shouting something . . .” Pilt approached the net swinging in Grift’s fist.
“A question for you, friend,” Pilt said. “Do you, by any chance, know Lady Tessamine Canyon?”
Profigliano’s eyes widened to an unnatural circumference.
“That’s what I thought” was Pilt’s chilling response. “Forget the buck, fellows. This bird is our ticket back to the front lines.”
Chapter 17
Tess’s arm ached as Osiris stood over her, steam rolling from his back, his trunk-like limbs soaked through.
“Be ye a gem dryad? Her Majesty told me to be kind to gems. Though I be havin’ my doubts.” He hummed distractedly.
“No,” Tess gasped. The throbbing in her arm kept her from rising. “I am an advisor’s daughter from the Dione of Glademont.”
“Well, I do disagree.” Osiris snorted. “Ye be a gem dryad, and a learned one at that.”
Osiris lowered his massive head to sniff Tess’s hair and then buried his nose in her sodden cloak. With difficulty, she attempted to be still. When he was finished, he pounded his paw on the sod.
“Bend yer ear, young one,” he insisted. “Ye be a gem dryad. Yer magic be marked by naught but fire. Fire be the mark of the gem dryad. Ye spoke of Glademont, a kingdom in ruins just yonder past my trees.” Osiris indicated northward, and then the eyebrows furrowed considerably. “Mmmmm . . . ,” he murmured, “I be a mistaken bear.” Osiris sniffed the air with his saucer-like nostrils. “I were saying,” he rejoined, “that kingdom be restin’ in ruins just yonder past my trees.” This time, he indicated southwest.
Tess determined herself to be in the company of a ferocious scatterbrain.
“I can assure you I am not a dryad of any sort,” she ventured. “Only recently have I been able to use magic because . . . because the queen of Glademont has passed it to me.” It was partially true, anyway. Though Tess reasoned that Osiris was unlikely to react to the shenìl as did the owls of the Council of the Nest, being more than capable of using magic himself.
Osiris plopped onto his hindquarters with curiosity. It was remarkable how harmless he now looked, considering he had nearly killed Tess moments earlier.
“Mmm-hmmm,” he said.
Tess, propped herself up, her forehead wrinkling with pain. “I can assure you, Glademont exists still . . . though it is a dione,” she said. “Its castle is on Zere Mountain, facing the valley. And it is ruled by Queen Aideen.”
Osiris frowned at Tess. “We had better talk this out nice and thorough.” Rising, Osiris began to saunter due west.
“Tessy, are you all right?” Ryon whispered loudly from across the creek. “Are you hurt?”
“I’ve hurt my arm, but I’m all right,” Tess answered. “Oh, sir,” she called after Osiris. “My friends still cannot cross the creek.”
“Ah. Yes, yes. Ye came with a crow or some such creature?” A shadow passed over Osiris’s face as he turned back.
“No, not at all,” Tess assured him, fighting the memory of the blind crow. “My companions are a horse, an owl, a boy, and a . . . well, there is a towhee somewhere in these woods who also belongs with us.”
“Yer lass the owl needs tendin’ to,” Osiris said, looking across the creek. “She may be needin’ yer powers by end of the night, young one.”
“What?” Tess looked across the creek, where Ryon was stooping over the small form of Wyndeling.
“She’s feverish,” Ryon called to his sister. “Her cuts must be infected. I can’t wake her up.”
An icy fear gripped Tess’s already shivering shoulders.
“Here.” Osiris lowered his head. “I’ve not had a rider for a bit, but if ye will hold on to my neck, we’ll see about the rest, aye?”
With her good hand, Tess grasped a handful of dense, musky fur above Osiris’s shoulder and hoisted herself onto his back. Gratefully, she pressed her body against his warmth.
“Right.” Tremors from his voice rumbled under her body. “It’s been many star shifts, young one. But by my tail there be something ’round here . . .”
The bear wandered near the bank of Ruby Creek, where a small statue lay buried in shrubbery and vines. Tess could barely make out a pair of delicate sculpted paws peeking from the tangle of leaves, until Osiris tore away the vegetation to reveal the impressive figure of a lynx in green marble. Even more remarkable was its unusual position, with the forelegs outstretched and head lowered, as if to enjoy a luxurious stretch.
“Mmmmm,” Osiris hummed, approaching the statue. “A pretty likeness.”
“What is it?” Tess said.
“Ye be meanin’ who is it, aye? That there be Queen Miriam’s beast, Rosemary. She were quick and clever and loyal as any creature Glademont’s ever been privy to.”
Tess strained to get a better look between Osiris’s ears. Perhaps Queen Miriam was more than just a figment of the bear’s imagination after all.
Facing the lynx’s head, the shaggy bear lowered his front half, making Tess clutch tighter to stay astride. Then, mirroring the lynx’s posture, Osiris addressed the statue.
“I pledge on my honor as a bondfellow that these creatures be posin’ no threat to my king, nor to his kingdom. Up with the bridge.”
Osiris spoke these words with such reverence that Tess half expected the statue to come to life. Instead, something within the statue triggered and the whole marble figure started to shift forward. After a few slow inches, the lynx stopped with a loud click. And then, much to Tess’s amazement, a series of softer clicks echoed from beneath the nearby creek waters, causing the surface to ripple. Tess dug her knees deeper into the bear’s ample fur.
In the next moment, the waters began to swell along a narrow strip running perpendicular to the flow of the current. After which, the boulder from Tess’s dream did something peculiar—it tipped over.
Slowly, the boulder lowered itself sideways into the creek, and as soon as it disappeared underneath the surface, a thick and narrow slab of river rock running the width of the creek emerged. The rock bridge slid out of the water on its side at first, as though previously overturned. Within seconds, the ends of the bridge met the banks, and a thin sheet of creek water rolled gently over it. Tess stared at the simple structure. It fit so seamlessly into the landscape.
“Now then,” Osiris said. “Let us fetch those friends of yers, madame gem. The night be terrible late and my den be cold as a stream by now, thanks to thee.”
“I’m sorry,” Tess said, her arm and shoulder throbbing afresh. “You see, we are on rather an urgent errand.”
“It may take me quite a bit of time to find yon den again.” The bear sauntered over the narrow bridge. “’Tis true in the past I’ve had to give up and make a new den instead, I must admit.” He chuckled.
“Skies help us,” Tess mumbled.
Dawn finally alighted on the Hinge Forest as Tess rode a shaggy bear between the silent trees. Profigliano had not returned. A timid blue light cast long misty arms through the forest ceiling and landed on her grim face, then on the muscular body of Jesse. Beside Jesse walked Ryon, who was gingerly carrying a small bundle of red feathers. Wyndeling had still not awoken, and Ryon was uncharacteristically solemn.
After a time, the party descended from a thick knoll of firs and cedars, which tumbled into a tidy grove of redbuds, whose heart-shaped leaves glimmered burgundy in the early morning sunshine. Osiris paused to draw a deep breath and sauntered cheerily between the redbuds.
“My happy wee trees. They be liking where they be planted, sure enough.” The great bear patted a redbud fondly as they passed. �
��Here we be,” he then announced as they reached a small fern-filled hill, the front of which was carved clean off and covered with stones. “Took me nigh on a decade to make yon den.”
Except for its location at the center of the Hinge, one would never assume the rock facade before them could be in the least bit animal-made. Its round door stretched two men high, with each inlaid stone uniquely shaped, ranging from a palm’s width to the size of a butter churn.
“This is something,” Ryon said, despite himself.
“The young master be liking Den Five? I be pleased as a bee, being partial to it myself.”
“How long have you lived here?” Ryon said.
“Nowhere near as long as in Den Two, but I reckon seventy-seven years ain’t nothing to shake yer fur at, aye?”
“Did you really build it yourself, Osiris?” Tess was just as impressed as her brother.
“Of course, madame gem. What do ye be taking me for? One of these wild bears eating like hogs in the summer an’ holing themselves up, first cave they find? I don’t live like no insect, by the skies.”
Tess nodded and smiled. Hardly a limb on her body had feeling anymore. “Might we go inside?”
“Yes, that were the plan, aye?” Osiris abruptly sat on his haunches, sending Tess sliding to the ground with painful thump. “Right then, there be a secret lever here, somewhere. I been known to forget where—having duties on the mind.” Osiris growled to himself. “And the tunnel be long to yon den. And there’s a fire to start. . . .”
“Shall we tend to the owl here, then?” Jesse suggested.
All eyes turned upon Wyndeling, who lay limp in Ryon’s arms.
“She’s barely breathing,” the boy said.
“Tsk,” grumbled the bear. “Whatever were she doing?”
“She was protecting us from an enemy,” Tess said. An unpleasant tingling was starting to bloom in her left fingers. She dared not look at them. Her arm could wait.
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