by Linda Jordan
Arien felt uneasy that she had lied to the trees, even though she had a suspicion they had never considered her offer.
The trees surrounding her home, screamed at her in anger and she heard the crashing and grinding as they crushed her wagon. Her heart wrenched with the loss.
The dark shadows of trees on the far side of the meadow began to close in, scrabbling over the grass and bringing with them an overwhelming feeling of malevolence. Arien noticed they didn’t cross the stream, so she headed for that. If she kept Magnus in the stream, they might make an escape. Until they could get to the section of the road where stones had been laid. Magnus couldn’t trot forever though.
At the stream, he hesitated, then trotted down it. The trees slapped at Arien, trying to knock her off and nearly succeeding. Magnus reared up once as a tree struck his face. She slid backwards, hanging on to his mane. The only reason she kept her seat was because he gave a little buck after his front legs came back down and her body slid back into place. Then he began to gallop down the shallow creek. She felt afraid that he’d put his foot in a hole and injure himself in his fear.
In her need, Arien went deep within and connected with the earth and the sky and Black Opal. “Please,” she whispered, “please, bring rain, wind, snow, anything to distract the trees.” She put all the energy she could into her plea.
A few moments later, rain spattered onto her face.
She felt the trees gasp with surprise. Those in front of her drew their limbs upward and aligned their leaves to catch the moisture. The splattering of rain on their upturned leaves grew until it sounded deafening.
Thunder rumbled above them and a few minutes later, light flashed around them. Magnum galloped faster.
Arien moved him over to the road as soon as she spotted it. She didn’t want to risk his slipping in the stream or miscalculating the depth.
He steamed from the exertion and the pelting rain. They were both drenched.
The thick, gnarled trees seemed unable or unwilling to move out onto the road, but she knew they could reach it with their branches.
She willed the rain to continue, knowing that the Opal did this in answer to her pleas. It was not her weather-working. The rainfall came harder now. Magnus slowed to a trot, winded, and she let him. He needed to rest. They weren’t out of the forest yet.
The stone road was slippery and once or twice he almost fell, his hard hooves clacking against the rocks. Each time her throat and body tightened with fear.
The rain turned to snow and the trees sighed, shuddered and let go of their leaves. White snow strewn with blood red leaves. The leaves floated around her like downy cottonwood seeds. The air smelled fresh and clean, clearing the dry moldiness out of her nostrils.
Arien wouldn’t be rejoining the Shishaw with wood or bark of the torat trees. She couldn’t rejoin them at all. Her home was gone.
The trees widened out and grew scarcer, ending in the black shapes of the burned forest. She had reached the end of the woods. Slowing Magnus to a walk, they both breathed a little easier. Here they were exposed and soon covered with snow. His breath became a white mist and Arien’s teeth chattered. All her clothes were drenched and quickly froze. At least she had a cloak. The cold wind seemed intent on blowing right through her skin. Her gloves and everything else she owned, including food, were back in the destroyed wagon.
Magnus continued walking, but still flinched at every sound, his ears swiveling on alert. Arien could tell he still felt afraid and wanted to get as far away from the forest as he could.
The stream meandered back beside the road and Arien stopped Magnus and pointed him to the water. He snorted and lowered his head to drink. She didn’t dare get off until she was close to a big rock or something else. She would never be able to get back on him again. They still needed to get farther from the woods. She didn’t trust the trees not to move the forest overnight.
Darkness approached, but she didn’t want to stop. She let him graze for a while, pushing the snow away and uncovering the grass. Then they went back to the road, she could tell where it was only by the clacking of his hooves. Magnus walked on through the twilight. Her belly rumbled in hunger, but she ignored it. Instead, she drank the snow as it fell, white in the descending nightfall.
A flickering glow appeared in the darkness. A fire, she realized. A horse whinnied in the distance and Magnus called out in answer. Arien wished she knew what was said.
She could see no one near the fire. A saddle and bedding lay stretched out beyond it. Between the road and the fire sat a huge log. Arien could get back on Magnus there if she got off. If she dared to get off. Magnus’ ears showed her the other horse stood just beyond the fire in the darkness, and perhaps its owner was in the same place.
“Hello,” Arien called out, tentatively.
“Are you alone?” asked a man’s voice.
“Are you?” She didn’t trust the stranger and felt particularly suspicious after her experience in the Forest of Sorrows.
He laughed. A man who was used to laughing, her gift of truth-telling told her.
“Yes. I am alone.”
“Well, then I am too. I have had an awful day, though. So if I were you, I would not make me angry.”
“Okay,” said the man, stepping into the firelight, the bow and arrow in his arms, dropping to his side. He had long, dark hair, pulled back. And deep set eyes which reminded her of someone. Her mother, in the portrait. Tears threatened to flow, but she pushed them away. She needed to be strong.
“I’m freezing. May I share your fire for a time?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. He came back toward the fire and dropped the weapons on his blanket. Then pulled his hood up against the cold.
She clumsily slid off Magnus; pain shot through her feet and legs as her frozen limbs slammed against the ground. Arien removed his halter so he wouldn’t get caught up on anything. She patted his icy fur and said, “Thank you, my friend.”
She limped towards the fire and tried to pretend she hadn’t been on horseback the entire day for the first time in longer than she could remember. Standing in front of the big log, she stretched her frozen fingers towards the fire. The man squatted on the other side of the fire, gnawing on a leg of something he’d roasted. He motioned towards a small, flat rock. A cooked carcass lay there, partially covered with snow. “You are welcome to some of the hare if you like.”
“Thank you,” she said, moving slowly toward the food, her mouth watering. Every muscle in her body ached.
The hare tasted sweet. The man watched her intently, but she felt no malice, simply curiosity.
“My name is Ronan,” he said.
“Arien,” she said, between bites. Ronan was a very common name. She hadn’t seen her brother since leaving home. This man didn’t look like the young carefree brother she remembered. But the eyes....
He was silent for quite a time and stared at her beyond the point of being rude before he spoke. “I am wondering, what brings you out on the road, on a night like tonight, with no gloves. Both you and your horse seem exhausted and starving?”
She stared at him intently and asked “And I am wondering, what you are doing out in the rain and snow, alone and so far from a village?”
“I was on my way to Black Opal City from the coast. I got lost in the blizzard and gave up. I found this spot and the firewood storage was full. So, here I am. I decided to wait until day and I could find my way again.”
She nodded. His words held truth. “I was in the Forest of Sorrows and the trees crushed my wagon and attacked us. We fled.”
“What were you doing in the Forest? Nothing or no one goes there.”
“Stupid of me, I know now. I had hoped to make it to the center. To the torat trees.”
“Ahh. You have been with the traveling people.”
“How would you know that?” she asked.
“Your halter and lead rope. Only the Shishaw weave leather in that pattern.” He threw the hare’s bon
es into the fire and licked his fingers.
She stared at him with interest. He clearly knew more than he was telling her. “So tell me something about yourself,” she said.
He drank out of a skin bag and said, “Not much to tell. Except that I did have a sister. She would be about your age. She left us when she was twelve to live with the traveling people. I have not heard of her since, although I have asked about her whenever I came across a clan.”
She cried, “Ronan. It is you!” She hobbled to the other side and embraced him. He held her in his arms, lifting her feet off the ground.
“I have often wondered about you and thought about meeting you again, but this was not quite what I imagined.”
She laughed. “Me neither. You have changed.”
“Four turns changes people a lot at our age. You look like Mother.”
“I have no memory of her,” she said. Arien felt sadness about her wagon and the portrait. She could never again look in her mother’s eyes.
“Of course not. You were barely born when she died. So why did you leave the Shishaw?”
“I made a mess of things. My weather-working failed us and our clan was chased from the last village. The rain ruined their harvest. I felt that I needed time alone to understand why it happened.”
“Hmmph,” he said. “So there is nothing you can do about the snow?”
“I asked the Black Opal for help; she provided the rain and snow. The Forest of Sorrows needed the moisture and the trees needed calming.”
“I think they probably have enough now,” he said.
“I would very much like the trees to remain asleep. We are still close enough to be attacked.” She shivered, not entirely from the cold.
“Ah. Now that I think on it, the snow is just fine.” He threw another log on the fire. Coals shifted and the flames leapt up. Smoke blew her direction and she dusted snow off the big log and moved to sit on the newly bare spot.
“What will you do now?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“Ride with me for a while,” he said. “Winter is coming, you will be cold without a wagon. You can stay at one of the villages and build a new one. Or you can come home with me,” he said.
“It is not my home,” she said.
“How do you know? You haven’t been there for four years.”
“Roderick has never been a father to me.”
“But Ewan and I were brothers, were we not?” he asked.
“But you will marry and leave. Or Nakia will have you killed. Or perhaps both.”
“Well, those are possibilities. Until then you could have a home. You seem adrift.”
“That is not necessarily a bad thing is it?”
“No. Not for a short time. But it can be deadly.”
“I will think about it. I am so tired.” She put her hood up and lay in front of the log next to the fire, curled up in her wet cloak. She barely felt it when he lay a blanket over her.
Arien slept fitfully, the frozen ground was uncomfortable and throughout the night trees attacked her in dreams of dark, brooding forests.
She woke the next morning to the popping and crackling of the fire. Her body cramped and sore from the cold, her spirit felt depleted. A pan of oats bubbled away over hot coals.
Arien sat up, moving a small mountain of snow off the blanket as she did so. The sky was clear. No more blizzards would be coming today.
Magnus and Ronan’s bay grazed nearby, blanketed in snow. She couldn’t see Ronan, he must be behind some shrubbery or one of the small hills. She took the spoon which sat in the snow and stirred the oats, then stood, shaking out the blanket and folding it.
Arien climbed the rocks to the top of the nearby hill. The Forest of Sorrows lay still with fresh snow and crimson leaves on the ground; the trees bare and quiet. In the opposite direction the snowfall disappeared not far beyond where they camped. The road was clear.
She sat on a boulder and thought. Ronan was right. She was in no shape to rejoin the Shishaw. No wagon and no understanding of why her magic had been waning.
It felt as if she had been going the wrong direction, so her weather-working magic had disappeared. Was it time for her to leave the Shishaw permanently? She had taken a wrong turn by going into the Forest of Sorrows. Her teacher would have said her life was opening onto a cross roads. And it was up to her to choose the direction to travel.
Ronan returned from behind an adjacent hill and they took turns eating the oats out of the pan with his spoon.
After breakfast she haltered and brushed Magnus, then mounted him using the log. His fur was wet, so her nearly dry pants would be soaked again soon, cloak or no. Ronan watched as she got on the giant horse. He was already on the bay and the horses walked until they reached the end of the snow, then moved up to a trot.
At midday he took a fork in the road which led closer to the Black Opal, the center of the world. After while they stopped to water the horses. He got off, but she said, “I can’t get off here. I’ll never get back on.”
“You are so used to being independent. I will help you, of course,” he said.
She slid off Magnus and the horse wandered knee deep into the water.
Ronan tossed her a container of nuts and she grabbed a mouthful and handed them back. He waved back at her to keep them longer. She alternated eating nuts and drinking handfuls of water. After the horses had rested and grazed a while, they continued on.
Arien spent the time trying to connect with the Black Opal, searching for that strand of energy which wove through everything. While the Opal’s power comforted her, but she felt no resolution surrounding the last several days. She sighed and let the events remain a mystery, for now.
By the end of the afternoon, the city of Revas was in sight.
“I was trying to get there last night when I got lost in the blizzard and gave up,” said Ronan. “I need to speak with Lord Somerville. Perhaps we can stay a day or two and rest.”
Arien nodded.
He continued, “One thing though, I do not trust the man’s oldest son. Do not reveal much to him about anything, especially our family.”
“Do I know anything to tell about our family? I left four turns ago, when I was still a child.”
Lord Somerville’s manor lay on the edge of the city. Golden grain fields surrounded the stone walls and glowed in the purple light of the Opal. The gate guards nodded at Ronan in recognition and looked suspiciously at her, riding a huge work horse. As the two of them made their way to the front entrance of the manor, seven riders thundered past them from behind, leading two heavily laden packhorses.
By the time Ronan and Arien arrived, the men had dismounted and stablehands had taken the reins of their horses. Kitchen staff were unloading the two packhorses, which carried deer and boar carcasses.
Ronan slid off his horse smoothly and one of the young men came over and clasped hands with him.
Arien dismounted as smoothly as she could and stood by Magnus, rubbing his cheek beneath the halter. The man continued over to her.
“And who have we here?”
“This is my sister, Arien.”
“I did not know you even had a sister,” he said. “Nice horse.”
She disliked him instantly. She could feel the condescension and arrogance that filled his words.
“Arien this is Krispin Somerville, Lord Somerville’s oldest son.”
“Do, I get an introduction as well?” asked one of the other men.
Ronan continued, smiling, “And this is Jerrin Somerville.”
Arien nodded to him. He was a complete contrast to his older brother. The younger brother, Jerrin, was dressed in well used hunting leathers, his dark hair cut just below his ears. He stood rubbing Magnus’ forehead, whispering to him. Magnus snorted and sighed. Arien guessed Jerrin was an animal speaker.
Krispin the elder brother, his long, blond hair down, wore elegant clothes even for hunting. He seemed a man full of his own importance. He stood speaking t
o Ronan, almost conspiratorially. But something on her brother’s face told her there was an insult involved. She watched as Ronan’s face shifted, the insult ignored.
An older man came out of the front door. Clearly, Lord Somerville. He was dressed regally in velvets and satins, his long, white hair tied back. “Ronan, this is a wonderful surprise,” he said, descending the stairs. The older man hugged Ronan and demanded to be introduced to Arien. Clearly the two were good friends.
He and Ronan led the way up the steps, followed by the other men, except for Jerrin.
Lord Somerville turned and said, “Jerrin, you will join us.”
“I will be in shortly, father,” he said, taking Magnus’ lead rope and the reins of his own horse. “I will take care of your horse,” he said to her.
She noticed Lord Somerville frowning at his son, then the older man shook his head and entered the building.
She turned to Jerrin. “Thank you. He should probably be put out to graze, he’s not used to hay and grains, and he’s had a rough couple of days,” she said.
“So he told me,” said Jerrin, raising an eyebrow at her. “I look forward to hearing your side of it. His wasn’t particularly clear.”
She patted Magnus and followed Ronan inside.
Servants showed her to her rooms. A bath and clean clothes were soon arranged. She relaxed and took her time cleaning up, in no hurry to join the others.
Arien soaked in the warm bath and decided that rejoining the life she left behind four years ago was not what she wanted. Already it felt too restrictive. She could do it for a while. Long enough to build another wagon. Then she needed to be on her way again.
She couldn’t live inside the walls of a manor again. She needed to have the wind blowing around her skin, the smell of the night air and the heat or chill of the seasons surrounding her.
Dinner was full of empty talk with people she didn’t know. And didn’t want to. Saliena Somerville, a girl her own age, sat on one side. She was very sweet but wanted nothing more than to look pretty and marry a rich noble. The girl actually bragged about having no magical skills.
Arien stewed inside, feeling angry that her most innate skill had disappeared. Without weather-working, her emotions were becoming all jumbled up and she could no longer make sense of her world. Or her place in it.