Scriber

by Ben S. Dobson

  It held its silence for a time, then quietly said, “Yes.”

  Disgust and anger welled up inside me. I had once told Bryndine that we had brought this upon ourselves, but I had assumed it was accidental, an ignorant mistake. If Erryn and Aliana had wrought such suffering on the Wyddin out of petty vengeance, it tainted the entire past of the Kingsland. “They rewrote history.” It was not the worst of their crimes, but to me—to any Scriber—it came close. “That is where the lies came from. False tales, told to make sure every generation to follow them would hate the Wyddin. They knew the blame was not yours, at least not entirely, and they still burned your trees.” I had never felt such shame—shame for my kingdom, for my history, for my very species. “How can you… After what was done to you, why in the depths would you want to help us now?”

  “The Mother and the Father gave us life and purpose,” the Wyddin said, and though its voice was hollow, conviction burned behind Wynne’s eyes. “They charged us with the protection of mankind. Your people will not fall at the hands of our brothers and sisters if we can prevent it.”

  Bryndine looked at the creature with something approaching respect. “You are keeping your oath.”

  “Putting the Burnt to rest will bring peace to the Wyd. Our exile will finally end. Once again, we will be free to give mankind our aid and protection, as we promised long ago.”

  Such pious devotion was unfathomable to me—I had never so much as sat through an entire Garden sermon. Had I been in the same position, I do not think I would have had the strength to spare a kingdom that had caused me so much pain, gods or no. “Is it all true, then?” I asked. “The Mother and the Father, the Divide, everything the Children preach?”

  “We cannot answer that, human. We have only our faith, and that is as it should be. None but the Eldest can claim to truly know how the world was born.” Urging Wynne’s horse forward through a narrow gap between two massive firs, the Wyddin looked back at me and said, “Perhaps when you wake them, you can ask.”

  * * *

  Evening had enveloped the forest by the time we emerged into the moonlit clearing where the First Tree grew.

  Fireleafs surrounded the clearing, standing so close together that I could not see between their trunks, their roots and branches so tightly interwoven that nothing larger than a mouse could have fit through the gaps. The result was something like a large box canyon, with great cliff walls of wood and bark and leaves. The only point of entry was from the north, a space of perhaps ten feet in a circle that must have been more than three hundred yards around, and riding through that opening was like riding between the legs of a giant. The trees rose hundreds of feet into the air, higher than any man-made structure I had ever seen, higher than the Kingshome itself. When Elovia fell they had been old already; they were ancient now, possibly the oldest of all living things.

  All living things save one.

  How to describe the First Tree? It was like nothing I had ever seen. Just looking at it, I could tell that it was as old as the world—nothing could have reached such a size without millennia of growth. It was nearly as wide as the fireleafs around it were tall, and taller than them by half their height again. Its massive trunk grew gnarled and crooked, bent under the weight of the ages. Bark like an old man’s skin covered every inch of its surface, so pale that it was almost white, and creased by knots and cords and wrinkle-like folds. Far overhead, its huge, nearly bald branches were silhouetted against the starry sky, bearing no more than a few scattered tufts of leaves that glinted silver in the moonlight. Twisting and weaving around one another, the branches bowed under their own weight to form a great latticed dome that ended just above the canopy of the surrounding forest.

  We were all silent as we rode across the lush, perfect grass that carpeted the clearing, towards that impossible tree. It was a silence I knew well, the quiet of the library in Delwyn’s Hall, or the Old Garden before the accident. A reverent hush, as though even the air itself knew to hold its breath in the presence of something so old and so precious.

  Orya, of course, was the first to break the spell. “Mother’s teats, that’s a big Dragon-damned tree.”

  Deanyn snickered. “Eloquently put, as always.” But then she glanced at the Wyddin, riding ahead of us, and a look of guilt replaced her grin. I understood. When the creature was not speaking, it was easy to see Wynne in its place, to forget that she was really gone. Every smile—every moment not spent mourning her—felt like betraying her memory.

  We dismounted at the foot of the First Tree, hitching our horses among the huge twisted roots. Looking up the massive trunk, it occurred to me how unlikely it was that something so huge had been undiscovered so long. Nothing was written of the First Tree in any book I had ever read. Certainly the Kingsland was rife with superstition about the First Forest, and we were in the deepest part of the woods now, where even the woodcutters of Timberhold dared not tread. But still, someone should have noticed a tree taller than anything ever built by human hands. Curious, I asked, “Why would the First Tree be here? Shouldn’t it have grown somewhere in Elovia?”

  “It is here now,” the Wyddin answered cryptically.

  “Yes, but how? It would have been destroyed in the cataclysm, wouldn’t it?”

  “No birthtree can be truly destroyed, human. When one is burned or cut down, the Wyddin born of it are not slain, but drawn back to the Wyd to give the tree new life and to be reborn from it in turn. This is why the Burnt will always return, no matter how many times you burn them. But even so, we would never risk allowing the First Tree to be harmed in that way. It was gone from Elovia before the cataclysm could take it.”

  “So it can move.”

  “Not as you would understand it. It is where it must be.”

  I could tell that I would get no better answer, so I moved on. “What must I do to speak to the Eldest? I don’t know how to use the Wyd. I just… hear voices.”

  “Hearing the Wyd and touching it are not the same. To touch the Wyd is to feel all that courses through it—only then can you make yourself heard by the Earth and Sky. You have done so before. You spoke of ending the snow in the mountains.”

  “The only time I have felt anything is when the voices made me burn.” Even in the Salt Mountains, where they had been too weak to burn me, the clarity had come only after they had tried. “I don’t control it. It only happens when I’m afraid.”

  “Yes. The Wyd is a thing of…” It tapped Wynne’s chest and seemed to struggle for a way to explain. “…Of spirit. Of heart, humans might say. Where the Gift is weak, it may take moments of vulnerability to touch it. Your kind often experiences it only in dreams.”

  “I have dreamed of the Burnt more often than I would like.” It made a strange sort of sense. Everything I had experienced through the Wyd had been based strongly on emotions and feelings—pain and anger, sorrow and fear. “But I don’t know what you expect me to do. I can’t scare myself on command.”

  “We can scare you plenty, Scriber,” Orya said, cracking her knuckles and grinning her wild grin. Though I knew it was a jest, I could not help glancing at Sylla. If there was one woman in the company who truly frightened me, it was her. For once, though, she was not glaring back at me; her eyes were on Bryndine.

  Wynne’s voice brought my attention back to the Wyddin. “You must find your own way to touch the Wyd. You know your spirit best. When the time comes, lay your hands upon the First Tree. Your Gift is weak, but the Tree is strong. It will help you reach the Eldest.”

  “When the time comes? Why not now?” I wanted it done with. I reached towards a nearby root.

  Wynne’s hand seized my wrist. “No!” The Wyddin’s vehemence startled me, and I pulled my arm back.

  Bryndine gave the creature a sharp look. “Why stop him? What have you not told us?”

  “We… thought you might not come if you knew.” The Wyddin’s usually flat voice sounded almost abashed. “It seemed best to bring you here first.”

 
Bryndine’s eyes hardened into steel. “Tell us. Now.”

  “The First Tree is a beacon within the Wyd. The Burnt will be aware of your efforts as soon as you begin, and they will not let you rob them of their vengeance. They will come for you the moment they feel you touch the Tree, with your hand or your mind. Your lives will depend on how quickly you can reach the Eldest.”

  “We’re leagues away from the nearest city,” Deanyn said. “Unless they can fly, they won’t reach us in time.”

  “You do not understand. If they cannot reach you in their current bodies, they will leave them. The forest is full of animals for them to use. They will come as wolves and stags and any other creature they can find, and nothing will stop them but your deaths. Your deaths, or the sleep only the Eldest can grant.”

  “Sky and Earth,” I swore, rubbing at my temple in agitation. When the Burnt came, our lives would be in my hands. Every woman there would die if I could not find a way to communicate with a tree full of ancient forest spirits. They might as well have asked me to reunite the Mother and the Father. “I have never touched the Wyd on my own. I don’t even know where to begin, and if I take too long, we all die. I can’t—”

  “I am sorry, Scriber Dennon, but you must.” There was sympathy in Bryndine’s voice, but the steel in her gaze did not falter. “We cannot do this without you.”

  Deanyn squeezed my shoulder, and I thought she might make some joke. But she only smiled, and I could see the trust in her eyes.

  Orya stepped up, clapped me on the back, and said, “Don’t worry, Scriber. We ain’t about to let you get hurt.”

  The others looked less certain—I saw the twins exchange worried looks—but they nodded, or half-heartedly voiced their agreement. All save Sylla. One look at her dark eyes told me everything I needed to know: if she dies, you die, they said.

  Their reassurance would have done little to calm me even without the menace of Sylla’s glare. It was not my own safety I worried for. But there was no way out now—I was the only one who could speak to the Eldest. That was why I had come. I nodded slowly, and managed to croak, “I will try.”

  “Will the Wyddin stand with us?” asked Bryndine.

  It lowered Wynne’s eyes. “We cannot. We are still of the Wyd—it is our very nature. Holding ourselves apart from it is… difficult. If we were to fight the Burnt, it would be far too easy for us to succumb to their pain and anger, and become as they are. No, you must stand against them on your own, if you cannot wake the Eldest before they come.”

  It was so absurd that I almost laughed. Nine women and an historian against the Burnt. The Kingsland is doomed.

  Sylla snorted with scorn. “So you brought us here to risk our lives while you run away. Is this your idea of honoring your oaths?”

  “We cannot ask for what they cannot give,” said Bryndine. “The Wyddin have offered us a chance we did not have a day ago.”

  “They offer us a chance to die,” Sylla said bitterly. “The Burnt outnumber us, and they have sorcery. What can we do against that?”

  “That is… a concern.” Bryndine turned back to the Wyddin. “Will they not simply use their magick to defeat us?”

  It shook Wynne’s head. “Their communion with the Wyd is not precise. The madness that consumes them hinders their control. Any force powerful enough to destroy you would harm the birthtrees, and the First Tree itself. The Burnt are difficult to predict, but we do not believe even they would go so far. There are many things that they might turn the Wyd towards, but they will not call down lightning, or open the earth.”

  “Still,” said Bryndine, “you expect a great deal of us.”

  “We are not unaware of that. But there is one more thing we must ask.”

  Bryndine inclined her head. “Ask it, then.”

  “If you should survive, you must tell your people the truth of the Burning. Tell them that we mean them no harm; that we never have. There is much that we can do for humanity, if only they would let us. But if the past remains obscured with lies, someday all of this will repeat itself again.”

  The Scriber in me could not refuse that request. The Burning, the Forgetting, and now this—all of it had happened because we had forgotten our history. The cycle had gone on long enough. “I will tell the Scribers, if I can make them listen,” I said. “It is time for this to end.”

  “Then we are in your debt, human.” It offered a thin smile, an attempt to show some kind of human emotion. “Now we must go. A final word of advice: wait for the sun to rise. Darkness does not hinder our eyes as it does yours, and there is no reason to give the Burnt any more advantage.”

  “We will rest tonight,” Bryndine said. “Thank you, for all you have done.”

  “It is we who should thank you. We will leave your friend, as promised.”

  “Wait.” I had one more question to ask. A question I had been avoiding, because I dreaded the answer. “I have seen others like me… others with the Gift. I have seen them burn and die from hearing these voices, but I still live. Why?”

  “The pain of the Burnt is enough to destroy those who do not guard their hearts. They will feel the suffering more keenly, and succumb to it more quickly. A guarded spirit, though, may retreat before it burns away.”

  “I have always fainted when they burn me.”

  “Your spirit protects you from their attacks. You ward yourself well to have lived this long.”

  Josia had always kept her feelings in plain sight, and had no qualms about listening to the problems of others. No one would ever accuse me of the same. I had hidden in Waymark for years rather than face my shame, and avoided anything resembling friendship for longer still. My cowardice, it seemed, might have been good for something after all. “Am I safe, then?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. We will not hide the truth from you—there is great risk. If you allow your spirit to pull away from the Wyd before reaching the Eldest, all is lost. But every moment you use your Gift, you are vulnerable to the Burnt. Even if your spirit is armored well, swiftness is the only thing that will ensure your safety.”

  It was not the reassurance I had hoped for, but I tried not to show my disappointment. “Then I suppose I will do my best to be swift.”

  “May the Mother and the Father protect you,” it said. “Farewell.” I could almost imagine it was Wynne saying goodbye, and a wave of grief washed over me.

  Wynne’s body went limp as the Wyddin left it, and I caught her as she fell, sinking to my knees on the cold grass. For the second time that day, I looked upon her lifeless face, and felt my throat constrict. All around me, the women gathered to salute their fallen friend, the sweet young girl who should have been a Scriber, not a soldier.

  I realized something then, as I cradled Wynne in my arms: I cared more about these women than anyone I had met since Illias. I could not bear to see any of them harmed. Not Selvi and Elene, whose only fear was that they would lose one another; not fearless, foul-mouthed Orya; certainly not Deanyn, with her quick wit and her smile that made my heart race. And Bryndine, with all her infuriating nobility and stubbornness; Bryndine, who I think I would have followed into the Dragon’s depths if she had asked it of me—her least of all. All my life, I had kept my distance from the people around me, tried not to get involved in their lives. It was, apparently, what had saved me from the Burnt. But I was not that man anymore.

  Control yourself, Lark. Sentimentality was something I could not afford, not now, not when it would make me vulnerable to the Burnt. If I died tomorrow before I could wake the Eldest, the others would die with me, and I could not allow that to happen.

  But the tears flowed all the same.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  I have lived more in these last months than in my entire life before them, I think. I have found true friends, and realized a childhood dream. I have travelled with women who I am honored to have known, women who are heroes by any standard. I met Deanyn, and I would not give that up for anything. I think that I may even have b
ecome a man who Illias can truly be proud of. And I owe all of it to Bryndine.

  — From the personal journals of Dennon Lark

  “I never understood half what she was sayin’,” Orya said. “I remember, she was tryin’ to explain that theory of yours to me, comin’ out of Highpass a few months back, Scriber. Thought she might knock me off my horse, all that arm wavin’.”

  A ripple of gentle laughter circled our small fire at the foot of the First Tree. It was past midnight, and considering what was coming in the morning, all of us should have been sleeping. Instead, we sat together around the fire and shared stories of those we had lost.

  I forced a smile. I was preoccupied with everything the Wyddin had told us, and talking about Wynne made my chest ache, but if this was what the company needed, I would not deny them. “She was more excited than I was,” I said. “And it was my idea.”

  “She would have been a fine Scriber,” Bryndine said softly, and Sylla squeezed her shoulder with surprising gentleness.

  There was a quiet moment then, and my hand wandered to my collar. The pin that I had worked most of my life to earn was absent. It was somewhere in the ashes of Wynne’s pyre now, a melted lump of gold and bronze.

  Eventually, Leste broke the silence. “We might learn from her. She was never forgetting her dream to be a Scriber. When this is done, I have it in my mind to sail again.”

  “If we survive,” said Deanyn, and there was an unfamiliar edge to her voice. She had been sitting beside me for some time, but had taken little part in the conversation until now. I glanced at her with concern, but she just stared into the fire.

  Orya ignored the comment and looked at Leste with a raised eyebrow. “Leavin’ us, are you?”

  “When we sailed to the mountains, it was good to be having the sea under my feet again. Life is very short, my friend.”

  “Elene and I might get out too.” Selvi looked at the others apologetically. “If we make it through this, I think we’ll have about used up all our luck. And we’ve been saving to buy some land.”