by Barb Hendee
“Very well, be that way!”
He knew this meant he was to take no action yet, so he left the new sprout on the branch where it grew.
“At some point, you will let me know—one way or another—where this one is supposed to go.”
It was not a question, though there was no reply.
“And people say I am devious.”
With that, Chuillyon thought of the child of Chârmun half a world away in the land of the an’Cróan. He reached out and placed his fingertips like a feather’s touch upon the glimmering tree’s trunk.
• • •
After settling Magiere in their tent to rest, Leesil stepped out and crouched before his pack left just outside. Ghassan and Brot’an stood whispering near their own tent, but both glanced his way in a pause. He ignored them and peeked back into his own tent where Wynn was tending Magiere by the light of a cold-lamp crystal.
Magiere was not injured or ill, but her strange collapse and disorientation bothered everyone, especially him. Normally, quelling her rage and hunger was a challenge. Whatever had happened to her near that massacre had flushed them from her.
Before leaving the Suman capital, he’d hidden a pouch of spiced tea in his pack. He hadn’t touched it as yet, for water was too precious to lose any in boiling. But Magiere liked spiced tea, and he wasn’t certain what else to do for her comfort.
Digging deep into the pack, he tried to find the pouch, and his hand brushed something else. About to ignore this object, he took hold to push it aside, and stalled. Then, he drew it out.
The narrow tube slightly wider than his thumb had no seams at all, as if fashioned from a single piece of wood. It was rounded at its closed bottom end, and its top was sealed with an unadorned pewter cap. The whole of it was barely as long as his forearm, and what it held . . .
Back in the Elven Territories on the eastern continent, Magiere had been placed on trial before the council of the an’Cróan clan elders. Most Aged Father had denounced her as an undead. To speak on her behalf, as an outsider and half-blood at that, Leesil had to prove he was an an’Cróan.
He had to go before their ancestral spirits for “name-taking,” a custom observed by all of them in their early years before adulthood. From whatever young elves experienced in that ancient, special burial ground, they took a new name. They never shared the true experience from which that came—well, most didn’t. At the center of that clearing stood a tree like no other he’d ever heard of, let alone seen.
Roise Chârmune, as they called it, was barkless though alive. It shimmered tawny all over in the dark. The ancestors accepted him, but instead of showing him a vision from which to choose another name, they’d put a name to him:
Léshiârelaohk—“Sorrow-Tear’s Champion.”
Among the ghosts he had seen of the an’Cróan’s first ancestors—though in that he and Wayfarer seemed the only ones who’d met such—there had been one woman, an elder among those who first journeyed across the world to that land.
Léshiâra—“Sorrow-Tear.”
She and all those ghosts had tried to fate him, to curse him, and he’d neither wanted nor accepted it. There were few people in this world, mainly one, whom he would ever “champion.” And right then, all he wanted was to make tea for Magiere, but he still remained focused on the tube.
There and then, Leesil sympathized with Osha and his unwanted sword. Perhaps he’d gotten off easier between the two of them. In spite, he gripped the tube’s cap and pulled it off, tilted the tube, and its even narrower content slid out into his other hand.
It was the proof he’d once needed to stand before the council on Magiere’s behalf. He had taken it from the very hand of a translucent ghost, a warrior and guardian among the ancestors. Tawny, leafless, and barkless, the branch still glistened as if alive, and it glowed faintly . . . like Roise Chârmune.
In the years that had passed, he’d discovered that if left in the tube for too long, the branch grayed to dried, dead wood. Or so it had seemed. Dropping it accidentally in the snow, while he, Magiere, and Chap had gone to the northern wastes to hide two orbs, he’d bumbled upon another discovery.
Even in that frigid land, the branch had taken moisture and come back to life.
Since then, Leesil took care to pour a little water into the tube now and then. He didn’t know why; it just seemed the thing to do. Still holding the branch, he used the tube to push the tent’s flap slightly aside and peek in.
Magiere was sitting up and scowling, which was a good sign for her. Wynn offered her a dried fig, and after briefly arguing, Magiere finally took it. As he was about to let the tent flap fall, the light of Wynn’s crystal washed out over the branch, and Leesil started slightly.
He rose up, studying the slender branch in his hand, lifting it upright before his eyes. What was that little something on the side of it? Barely a protruding nubbin, but was it trying to sprout something?
Long tan fingers touched the branch’s far side—or rather they were just suddenly there.
Leesil sucked in a sharp breath as he heard another one. Before him, touching the branch’s far side, was a very tall figure in a black robe.
“Oh . . . oh, my . . . this is not right,” someone whispered within that deep, sagging hood.
Leesil jerked the branch away, dropped the tube, and ripped out a winged blade, snapping the tie of its sheath in half. The robed figure lurched back in another gasp as Leesil heard running feet coming fast. The figure’s hood whipped toward the sound.
“Wynn, light!” Leesil shouted as he lunged.
“Wynn?” the hooded one whispered, and then shouted, “No, wait, please, she can—”
The voice cut off as someone else—tall and dark clad—slammed into the robed figure and both flopped across the ground in the dark. Another gasp erupted from the hood as Brot’an came up atop his pinned target with a stiletto poised to strike. Ghassan arrived in that same instant, and then light flooded the camp with the sound of a tent flap swatted aside.
“Magiere, stay there!” Wynn called, and then she was right at Leesil’s side.
Brot’an held the robed one pinned with a folded leg across its upper chest. His knee was lodged on the sand with his foreleg pressing near the figure’s throat.
“What’s happening?” Wynn asked in a hurried voice.
Brot’an wrenched the hood aside.
Leesil was still in shock as to how someone so tall had gotten into the camp—and that close to him—without any of them noticing. He even looked about once before focusing on the intruder’s face.
“Where did he come from?” Ghassan demanded.
“I don’t know,” Leesil answered. “He just . . . was just there!”
Light from Wynn’s cold-lamp crystal revealed the shock-flattened, triangular face and wide, wide amber eyes of a mature elven male. It was hard to be certain between night shadows and the harsh light, but maybe there were faint creases around his eyes framing a narrow nose a bit long, even for his kind.
“Chuillyon?” Wynn whispered.
Finally blinking, Leesil looked over and then down. Wynn’s features had gone as blank and flat in shock as the intruder’s.
“You know him?” he barely asked.
“He-hello . . . again,” the elder elf choked out. “It is . . . is a . . . bit difficult . . . to talk like this.”
“Don’t let him up!” Leesil barked at Brot’an, though he still watched Wynn.
The little sage’s oval face twisted in fury—and she lunged without warning.
Leesil grabbed her around the waist, which wasn’t easy with the branch in one hand and a punching blade in the other. But he wasn’t letting go of either or her. And then he flinched.
There had been a few times he’d heard Wynn slip, usually in Elvish. None of that had ever been like the torrent of foulness that came out of
her now. He couldn’t even follow half of it. But as to what he did catch, well, he had to resort to dropping on his rump just to pull the thrashing sage down.
“Let go of me!” she shouted, and followed this up with another word in Elvish.
Now that last word he did know, though he couldn’t pronounce it himself—and he didn’t like it shouted at him.
“Wynn, desist, now!” Ghassan snapped.
“What is going on?”
Ghassan’s head pivoted as he looked over Leesil’s head.
Leesil almost swallowed his tongue on hearing Magiere right behind him.
How was he going to hang on to Wynn and keep Magiere out of this? Magiere wouldn’t even second-guess acting on Wynn’s reaction. A sharp pain took that thought as Wynn punched him in the thigh.
“Stop!” he shouted, dropping his punching blade to get a better grip on her. “Magiere, you back off too! Brot’an, let him up but watch him.”
Brot’an shifted into his rear folded leg, releasing pressure, though he kept the stiletto poised.
“Wynn, you know this one?” the master assassin asked.
He remained focused on his target. The elder elf half rolled aside and sat up, forcefully clearing his throat and rubbing it as well.
“Oh, yes, I know him!” Wynn shouted.
“So I take it he’s sided with the Enemy,” Magiere half hissed, half growled.
When she inched ahead into view, Leesil saw the falchion in her grip. “I said back off!” he warned. “Let Brot’an handle this.”
“Wynn?” Ghassan asked.
“Chuillyon is always on his own side!” she answered. “And that’s why he is a pain in my—”
Leesil clamped his free hand over Wynn’s mouth and got an elbow in his side for it.
“Hardly fair, Wynn,” the mature elf replied hurtfully.
His amber eyes shifted slightly—and widened a bit—as they looked down to Leesil’s other arm wrapped around the front of Wynn. And down a little more.
Chuillyon’s face again filled with wonder. He blinked slowly, leaning forward in peering . . .
Leesil whipped the branch around his back, out of sight, and that was when Wynn got loose.
• • •
By the next midmorning, Wynn’s ire had cooled. No, it was choked off.
She had no proof that Chuillyon had interfered with any of her efforts, but she knew he had just the same. He had a penchant for turning up far too often when it was to his advantage, not hers and not anyone else’s. Vreuvillä considered him untrustworthy and self-serving.
Wynn might not know why, but she wholeheartedly agreed.
If Brot’an had not stopped her after she’d broken free of Leesil, she certainly would have punched that interloper right where he sat. She was still thinking about doing so as she paced about the camp.
Chuillyon was now essentially a prisoner, sitting near the dead fire and being closely watched by either Ghassan or Brot’an or both. This gave Wynn only minor satisfaction, for it did not solve the problem of getting rid of him. Magiere and Leesil were both in their own tent, and Leesil had put away the branch.
Wynn could see how that object might interest Chuillyon, but the “why” bothered her more. She kept eyeing him as she paced, and his serene expression gave her no clues.
Brot’an sat outside the other tent, watching, supposedly, though he rarely looked directly at Chuillyon. Then again, there was no place Chuillyon could go, and exactly how had he gotten here?
Ghassan stepped out of the other tent with a cup in hand, which he took to offer to Chuillyon.
“I thank you,” Chuillyon said with such gracious politeness that it soured Wynn’s stomach.
“Where are your white robes?” she asked.
He had barely started to sip the water and lowered the cup with a shrug.
“I have given all of that up,” he answered without looking at her.
Oh, that was unlikely. He was too power hungry to ever leave his guild branch—and his special, hidden suborder—by choice.
Ghassan, still standing nearby, raised a dark eyebrow. “How did you arrive here?”
Chuillyon let out a humming sigh through his nose as he looked out across the open desert. “I am not entirely certain, not that the south is without its . . . charm.”
Wynn ground her teeth.
Ghassan would never receive any real answer, only politely dry and somewhat snide humor to fend off more questions. Wynn wished she and Magiere could have a little private “talk” with Chuillyon. That would get some answers or confirm her suspicions.
Chuillyon too often appeared—in too timely a fashion—at destinations without sufficient time to have traveled there. Once she had encountered him at Chârmun after last seeing him in Calm Seatt. That was nearly impossible, considering she had used the fastest route by sea and inland from Soráno. And last night, he had been surprised—no, astonished—and then eagerly curious at the sight of Leesil’s branch.
And that had been cut from Roise Chârmune, an ancient “child” of Chârmun.
Could it be so simple?
Wynn had seen amazing impossibilities in a handful of years. A few included Chuillyon, such as his shielding Princess Reine Faunier-Areskynna, a royal of Malourné by marriage, from conjured fire racing toward her.
“I think you have some way to transport yourself,” she accused, “though maybe it is limited . . . to certain marked places.”
Chuillyon straightened, her words taking him by surprise; he calmed and took a sip from his cup. “You have always had an imagination that exceeds your exceptional intellect.”
If possible, Wynn grew angrier. “Do you know where Leesil’s branch comes from?”
For an instant, she thought he might deny such an interest, and then he blinked.
“Do tell,” he replied.
“From Roise Chârmune, the tree of the an’Cróan ancestors.”
His gaze shifted with a slower blink as he set down the cup but kept his eyes on the stark landscape.
“I am sure that means nothing to me,” he said, “but I am curious. Why are you so far east in the desert?” He smiled, still without looking at her. “The possibilities are rather limited.”
Wynn glared at him. It hadn’t taken him long to reason out where he now was, though the answer would be obvious to anyone from this half of the world.
“If you cannot enlighten us,” Ghassan cut in, startling Wynn, “in any way, perhaps another touch of Leesil’s branch will send you back to wherever you came from.”
Wynn wished Ghassan had not jumped to that implied truth. There was as much to learn from Chuillyon’s evasions as from a straight answer. But yes, however Chuillyon had arrived, it had something to do with Leesil’s branch.
Chuillyon smiled broadly. “Do you think you can manage that?”
“Yes,” Ghassan answered. “I can.”
This bothered Wynn. Suddenly she was not so eager to be rid of Chuillyon. The thought of Chârmun, or its offspring, Roise Chârmune . . . or Leesil’s branch . . . brought something else to mind.
What was little known before the Forgotten History was that Chârmun and the land in which it grew was the only place the Enemy’s undead minions could not go. If it weren’t for Chane’s “ring of nothing,” he couldn’t have even entered there now.
Did Leesil’s branch have such properties in a lesser way? If so, how could that be activated? And there was still Chuillyon’s method of travel to fathom. If he could pass from Chârmun to the branch, reasonably he could go the other way. And being able to take others with him might be useful if the worst came in the end.
There was much Wynn needed to know.
Chuillyon smiled softly as he turned his head, though not toward Wynn. He eyed Ghassan instead. The two obviously had some things in common.
>
Both were scholars once highly placed in their respective guild branches, one with arcane skills and the other with almost theurgical abilities in nature. Both had fallen and both had been cast out, though the causes for Chuillyon were not clear. Not yet.
“And what are you doing out here?” Chuillyon asked casually. “Perhaps I can be of assistance?”
Brot’an still sat passively cross-legged before the second tent’s flap, but now he gazed intently at Chuillyon. Whether he saw a use for the errant once-sage or simply some reason to get rid of an “unknown variable,” Wynn wasn’t certain. She didn’t trust Chuillyon, but she did believe he would want to stop the Enemy from rising as much as any of them.
Ghassan’s sudden smile was disturbing. “We came out here to hunt undead. I do not see how you could be much help.”
“Oh, I could,” Chuillyon answered, “as Wynn can attest, at least concerning one wraith.”
Ghassan’s smile faded. He looked to Wynn. “He fought Sau’ilahk?”
Reluctantly, Wynn nodded. “Yes.”
Exactly how was unknown. Chuillyon’s influence was more akin to prayers than spells, but he had halted Sau’ilahk several times.
“What else have you done?” Brot’an asked.
Wynn still liked Brot’an more than others did, but his sudden interest after such a long silence chilled her.
• • •
At sunset, Magiere insisted they try to pick up the trail of the undead from the night before. Leesil resisted a little, but Magiere still feared they were too late. The undead traveled harder and faster than the living, especially after feeding.
In truth, she didn’t know why she’d collapsed and lost her fury when she’d tried to rush in and stop the slaughter. It shouldn’t have happened. She feared it ever happening again, and what if it did? All she could do was prepare to leave camp.
Leesil stood waiting. The look on his face told her he was still uncertain about her going back out. Maybe he doubted her as much she doubted herself.
Brot’an offered to remain behind with Wynn and watch Chuillyon, and Magiere agreed.
At the sound of rustling canvas, she turned to see Ghassan emerge from the other tent. Though he was often hard to read, she’d gotten to know his ways well enough to see he was preoccupied.