Craning his neck, he found he could barely see past the fall of dirt at the turn in the stairs. It didn’t appear to block the entire stairwell.
Keeping the crystal fi rmly in one hand, he shoved his satchel around to his back and began climbing the fallen debris. His free hand sank into the dirt and sent it cascading down behind him, but he struggled on, catching at the thicker roots the higher he rose to help pull himself upward. He lost his footing twice before he grasped desperately for the corner of stone that marked the stairwell’s turn, then hauled himself up around the corner with both hands, the edges of the prism biting hard into the flesh of his palm.
Propping himself against the corner, he raised the light and saw where the earth had caved in under the weight of centuries of debris. A narrow hole opened up through the earth. Beyond it, he could see cedar branches stirring and the pinpricks of stars.
The hole wasn’t large enough for him to fit through.
Cursing, he tucked the prism back into the box, replacing it in his satchel.The stairwell was sheathed in darkness,broken only by the faintest of light from the opening above. Drawing his shoulders up with a deep breath to steady himself, he let out the pent-up air with a sharp exhale and scrambled up the remaining slope to the hole.
His arm reached through to the fresh air and night sky above, then clawed at the ground as he shoved his head into the narrow opening. Dirt dislodged in his struggles rained down around his body trapped below, some falling beneath his shirt and skittering down his back and chest. He gasped and kicked with his feet, but he was too big.
He ceased struggling and found that his other arm, the one still below ground, was now lodged against his side.
He bit off another curse and forced himself to relax, to think. Dirt had caught near his mouth and he spit it out.
Growling, he tried to retreat. His free arm flailed, but he was lodged tightly in the hole now, head, arm, and left shoulder above ground. Spitting curses—at Diermani, Ai-elan, even Ilacqua, the dwarren god—he writhed in the hole, shoved hard against the needle-strewn earth, and finally collapsed backward as much as he could, spent.
His body was simply too damn big.
Then, staring up at the night sky, he started laughing.
Shaking his head, he focused.
The years sloughed off, his body growing younger and younger. The skin and wrinkles of the sixty-year-old man firmed and hardened into that of a thirty year old, then a twenty year old, before softening again as he drew himself back to the body of the twelve-year-old boy who had first drunk from the Well nearly two hundred years before.
A boy whose body was much leaner than the sixty-yearold form Colin normally wore.
He pulled himself from the hole easily, with only the satchel getting snagged on a root to impede the process. At last, he lay back on the dead needles shed from the trees, panting with the effort, then chuckled to himself again.
He hadn’t transformed his body to such a young age in decades, perhaps not since the Accord between the three races had been signed.
Climbing to his feet, he brushed off the dirt and debris from the forest floor, his clothes hanging on his thin frame. He thought about keeping the youthful form, but without proper clothes. . . .
He settled on a man in his mid-thirties, the clothes only slightly loose, then began winding his way through the trees toward Terra’nor.
When he reached the edges of the city, he found Osserin waiting. The piercing white light of the Faelehgre hovered beneath a large stone archway that still stood over one of the main roads, the towers, fountains, and lower buildings interspersed with the huge boles of trees receding into the distance behind him. Like most of the buildings of Terra’nor, the arch showed signs of its age. One corner had cracked and crumbled away, another crack running down the center of the arch, but it still stood.
Welcome home, Shaeveran, Osserin murmured, pulsing once. Have you come because of the Wells? Of their new awakening?
“Yes, and to ask the heart of the forest for another gift.”
We thought so. You are not the only one.
Colin shot the Faelehgre a startled glance.“What do you mean? Who else has been here? How did they get past the Faelehgre and my wardings?”
The Faelehgre began leading Colin through the city, the white towers with empty windows and shattered balconies looming on either side. Osserin turned down a central street lined with standing columns,most toppled.When Colin had been here before, nearly all of them had been standing.
No one has been to the Well. But the dwarren shamans have been to the heart of the forest.
“Why? What have they come for?”
Like you, they come asking for gifts, for shards of heartwood that their hunting parties—the trettarus—can use against the Shadows and the Wraiths.And the other fell creatures of the Turning.
Colin continued walking in silence, his body thrumming with shock.When the pair reached the height of the amphitheater’s stair that cupped the edge of one side of the Well, he halted.“I had not realized the dwarren knew of the heart of the forest.”
Osserin didn’t halt, drifting down the stairs toward the wide pool of flat water that spread out beneath them, the forest itself picking up where the city and the amphitheater ended. Below, the Well pulsed with blue-tinged light like the Well in the northern wastes, illuminating the surrounding trees and buildings with a harsh glare. More of the Faelehgre’s lights hovered over the water.
Their shamans knew of it ages ago, would come to the Heart to speak to the forest, to commune with the Lands. Until the Shadows found them. The dwarren did not come again after that, the cost too high, until they realized that the Summer Tree had freed them from the Shadows’ threat.
But come.There are more important things to discuss.The Faelehgre have been awaiting your arrival.
Colin wanted to ask more—he found the news that the dwarren communed with the heart of the forest unsettling and heartening; perhaps he was not as alone in his struggles as he had thought—but as he began descending the stairs, moving toward the Well and the intoxicating scent of the Lifeblood it contained, he realized Osserin spoke the truth. The Faelehgre around the Well were agitated, flashing and spinning over its waters. As he drew closer, he caught the edges of their conversation, the air humming with its pulse.
Osserin never got the chance to announce him.When he reached the stone lip of the Well—made from rounded river stone, not the stone used to build the city—the nearest of the Faelehgre noticed him and shot toward him.
Is this your doing? Have you awakened the Well to the east?
The air throbbed with the light’s anger, prickling along Colin’s skin. He glared at the Faelehgre.
“Of course not. Do you think I would be so stupid as to upset the balance it took me nearly thirty years to achieve?”
Then who was it? Who has awakened the Source?
And what do you intend to do about it?
More of the Faelehgre had darted toward him, so that he was now surrounded by at least ten, a few others remaining at a distance. All of them were pulsing with anger or concern, a strange echo of the light from the Well beneath them. Colin’s gaze shot from one to the other where they hovered.
“If I didn’t awaken this . . . this Source, then it must have been one of the Wraiths,” he said, trying to keep his voice level, reasonable. He hadn’t expected to be attacked by the Faelehgre when he arrived.
Walter.
Not necessarily, Ulyssa, Osserin replied.
He’s the one who started all of this! He’s the one who broke the Shadows free!
“But we know he has used the other Wraiths to awaken other Wells. Even so, I still believe that Walter is behind this new awakening.”A wave of satisfaction flooded the air, followed by disgruntlement.
Colin brushed it aside. “I’ve come from the northern wastes, where I felt the new Well through the Lifeblood. I know that it lies to the east, beyond the dwarren plains in the Thalloran Wastelan
ds, but that is all. The currents flowing from these Wells to it were too strong for me to discover more than that. What can you tell me about this new Well? Why do you call it the Source?”
Because it is so powerful, one of the Faelehgre moaned from behind the front ranks.
At least three of the Faelehgre flared in annoyance, Os-serin darting to the front of the group directly before Colin.
When the Well was first awakened, the pulse from the Lifeblood shook the entire city. Towers collapsed, columns cracked, and streets buckled. It was the strongest pulse any of us have ever witnessed. Its magnitude indicates that the Well that was awakened is large, much greater than any other Well since Walter began the process.
We sent Faelehgre to the nearest Wells to confirm what we found here: all of the Wells are connected, and all of them are now part of this larger source of Lifeblood to the east. Somehow, the two systems were separated in the past, our system blocked from the other. But that blockage has been removed. We’re now all part of the same system, feeding off of the mingled Lifeblood. But the removal of the blockage has thrown the two systems off-balance.
“I know all this,” Colin cut in, frustrated. “I sensed it all through the Well in the north. I’ve seen the effects in the storms on the plains and the resurgence of the Drifters. What I need to know is what needs to be done to stop it, to restore the balance.”
All of the Faelehgre hovered in uncertain silence for a long moment.
Until the one Osserin had called Ulyssa drifted forward.
There are only two options we can see, he said. Either the blockage that was removed needs to be restored. . . .
Or someone must go to the Source and restore the balance from there.
“‘SOMEONE’ NEEDS TO GO to the Source and restore the balance,” Colin muttered as he stalked away from Terra’nor and the Well and into the forest beyond,time slowed once again.“Guess who that’s going to be?”
He’d been on his way to the east already, to find out whatever he could about the sea of Lifeblood he’d sensed beneath the earth and how it had unbalanced what he’d so carefully wrought with the Wells in the west.The Faelehgre had simply given him more information about what to expect when he arrived: another Well, perhaps, one much larger than the one in Terra’nor. How he was to find the Well was a different matter. They didn’t know precisely where it was, only that it was beyond dwarren lands, in the wastelands farther east, and that he should be able to follow the flow of the Lifeblood deep within the earth to find it.
But that was what galled him: the assumption by the Faelehgre that he would do it. There had been no question; they simply expected it of him. They’d said “someone,” but they, and he, knew there was no one else who could. And they both knew he would have to face the Wraiths and the Shadows once there, perhaps even Walter himself. There would have to be a confrontation. The Wraiths would not awaken the Well and then simply let him repair the damage. They needed the Well for something. The Faelehgre could now travel to the east—the awakening of the Well expanded their sphere of influence—and they could deal with the Shadows, but they could not handle the Wraiths. The Alvritshai, dwarren, and humans could not manipulate the Well to achieve any kind of balance.
It had to be him.
He slowed and bowed his head, the weight of the responsibility suddenly too heavy. There was too much to do, too much to handle: the new Well, whatever was forcing the dwarren to Gather, the ambiguous threat he’d been given by the Wraith in the north, and whatever Lotaern had planned for the Alvritshai and the knife Colin had forged. The world had felt steady and stable for decades. He hadn’t been idle; he’d been working, traveling, studying, looking for a way to destroyWalter and the other Wraiths.
He thought he’d have more time.
A few days ago, he’d accused the races of being complacent, but he’d behaved in exactly the same way. The Seasonal Trees had only bought them time. He’d known that the moment he’d planted them, known that they would not keep Walter and the others at bay forever. Even so, he’d allowed himself to relax, expecting them to last for hundreds of years.
And now the Wraiths were active again. He was being forced to catch up, to wake up.
Everything was happening so fast.
He shook himself and tried to shove aside the weight that pressed against him, but he could feel it draped across his shoulders, like the bar of a penance lock.
He shuddered at the old memory, then struck out grimly again into the forest. The dark boles of the cedars closed in around him, the red-tinged bark scenting the air, their roots making the unmarked path treacherous. They grew larger as he neared the heart. He passed close to one, rested his hand against its bark for support, and felt the deep thrum of the wood beneath his hand, the life-force that pulsed through the tree even with time slowed. He unconsciously drew strength from it, and the melancholy mood brought on by the Faelehgre’s expectations lifted slightly. He pushed away from the comfort and continued.
Moments later, he slipped around another trunk, letting his hand brush its essence as he did so, and found himself at the lip of a small, empty hollow.
Cedars lined the space, the ground dipping down and leveling out, littered with fallen needles, small cones, and twigs. Faint moonlight sifted down through the branches overhead, everything in various shades of gray and black. The ridge that surrounded the hollow was natural, although startlingly circular, composed mostly of exposed cedar roots. Colin stood at its edge, letting the soothing light surround him, then stepped down to its center.
As he moved, he saw the first signs of the dwarren’s return. When he’d come here before, the hollow had been empty save for the trees and their leavings. Now, he spotted a dwarren spear thrust into the ground at the lip of the hollow, ceremonial feathers tied to its end. Other offerings were scattered on the ground among the cones and twigs—a carved scepter, a tangle of leather strands woven into a band, a latticework of beads and bone. He paused over a small mound of earth, like an anthill, that had been heaped up, a depression made in its center. Something dark had been poured into the depression, an offering of water or blood.
There were no dead embers or charred brands anywhere. Fire was not something used to appeal to a forest.
The fact that the dwarren had rediscovered their connection to the forest gave him some small hope that perhaps he wasn’t fighting the Wraiths and the Shadows alone. Aside from the spiritual connection to the Lands that the hollow provided, there was only one reason to come here.
The same reason Colin had come.
He found the center of the hollow, where the ground had been tread upon so often it had been swept clear of all debris and packed solid. He stared up into the patch of night sky above, then let time resume. The branches of the cedars swayed in a gentle breeze that did not penetrate to the hollow. The cloying scent of cedar—heavy with time slowed—became almost overpowering with its intensity. He breathed it in deeply, allowing his lungs to adjust to it, and felt it affecting his body, similar to the smoke of the dwarren yetope. His gaze dropped to the surrounding trees, the trunks that lined the edge of the hollow suddenly sharp and distinct in the darkness, as if they’d been lit with a soft, hazy yellow light. He circled once, twice, and then settled to the ground, legs crossed before him. He let his arms drop into his lap and hung his head forward, back hunched.
And he breathed. Slow, deep breaths, drawing the scent of the forest inside him, letting it permeate him. His arms began to prickle after ten such breaths, the ground to grow warm beneath him as his body relaxed, his heart calming. He felt himself drawn deeper into that earth, centering downward, to where the roots of the forest twined among the stone and the flow of the Lifeblood. The essence of the forest he had only brushed when touching the boles of the trees grew thick and viscous, like sap. It smothered him as he submerged himself in it, surrounding him with its luminescence. And then he opened his mind, to allow it to see his need.
Unlike the Lifeblood, more like Ai
elan’s Light, the essence of the forest was animate and aware, but in a way that Colin could not comprehend. He’d learned long ago not to try, to simply allow the forest to feel him, to taste him. He sensed its presence, filtering through him like the growth of roots through soil, searching.
Distantly, he heard a sigh, as of wind through branches, and the creak and groan of wood shifting. Something brushed his shoulders, his hunched back, tickled the base of his neck. He shuddered at the touch. Then the sensation retreated, the essence of the forest withdrawing from his mind. The earth pushed him up out of its warmth.
He gasped and opened his eyes, straightening where he sat, his lower back screaming with tension. He rotated his aching neck, green needles falling from his shoulders to patter onto the ground around him. Something sticky on his neck caught at his shirt and he reached back to touch it, his fingers coming back tacky with sap. As he twisted the pain out of his shoulders, he noticed what had been left on the ground before him.
A new staff, its length riddled with twisting lines, like those found beneath the bark of a branch after it had been peeled away. He reached out to take it automatically—it was what he had come for, a staff to replace the one stolen by Vaeren in the northern wastes—then paused.
The forest had left another gift. A scattering of arrows, made of the same wood as his staff. He counted at least four dozen, along with two longbows like those the Alvritshai carried.
For Eraeth and Siobhaen.
He glanced out into the surrounding forest with a frown. He had not asked for the bows, nor the arrows. Yet the forest felt he needed them.
The sentience behind such a gift sent a shiver down his spine. He had thought he’d come here often enough to understand the forest, had thought that it was aware, but only enough to know what he asked for and why.
It had never anticipated a need he had not anticipated himself.
Leaning forward, still uneasy, he closed his hand around the staff and felt the recognition of the life-force within it pulse. He drew that life-force around him, the contact easing a tension he hadn’t realized he’d felt. The presence of the staff completed him in some way. He had held one nearly all of his life, since drinking from the Well and becoming part of Terra’nor, part of the forest. He took a moment to run his free hand up and down its length, smiling.
Leaves of Flame Page 25