When Krea and Dane just continued to stare at him, Sorin gave up his explanation. “Dane, come here,” he said, waving Dane over. “You need to offer proper thanks to the tree and Nordu.”
Dane released Krea’s hand with obvious reluctance and scrambled over the roots to join Sorin at the base of the trunk. Sorin shifted Dane around and placed the boy’s small hand against the tree’s bark and put his fae-hand over it. Dane didn't even flinch. Sorin just shrugged and chanted a quick verse of thanks.
A burst of white light flooded out of Sorin’s hand and exploded throughout the clearing. Magic pulsed through the air, making it impossible to breathe as the tree swayed and snapped under the force of an invisible wind. A sharp crack and then a yelp brought the light flooding into Dane, where it winked out. For several minutes, nobody moved.
Sorin lay against an upturned root with Dane across his chest. In the boy’s bleeding hands, he clenched a fist-size piece of the oak tree that had twisted and curled into a tight oval to form a small, dark knot. Sorin and Dane were both staring in awe at the twisted jewel when the sweet scent of rotting moss filled the air.
Krea spun to find a single loireag, barely taller than Krea’s knee, standing a mere stride in front of her, sneering with bared fangs. It wore a covering of the same oily moss that collects on the bottom of stagnant pools and clumps of lanky green hair sprang from its head like water plants lying dead on the river’s brim. Skin the muted gray of a bloated carp poked out from between the moss as it weaved back and forth, snarling and hissing, but not venturing to step closer. Krea took two steps backward. “Sorin?”
If he answered, she didn’t hear him. An angry buzz filled her mind, and a sudden, desperate need pulsed through her thoughts. “I think it’s trying to talk to me,” Krea ventured. “Can loireags do that?”
The little creature chattered and snarled as Krea watched Sorin shift Dane onto the ground out of the corner of her eye. “I can’t understand it, can you? You can’t exactly meld with a faerie.”
“It wants something back, but I don’t know what. Something about Dane. About taking something,” Krea said. An image of Dane’s bloody hands flashed through her mind and anger replaced fear. “It’s here for Dane.”
“How do you know?”
Krea shrugged. “I don’t, but it wants something about Dane and it’s not getting him.” She glanced from Sorin to Dane, and then looked around the clearing. It seemed to be the only loireag, but she wasn’t dropping her guard. “Can’t you just blow it up with a sunball or something?” she asked, turning her attention back to the still sneering creature in front of her.
“He hasn’t actually done anything,” Sorin said, but his voice faded away into the distance. A whisper in the wind said, “Krea, listen to me. Listen to my voice. Krea!” But the wind faded as well, until all that was left was the buzzing in her ears and the hiss of the faerie in front of her as it waved its body back and forth, back and forth. “Krea!”
She turned to look at him and the faerie chose that moment to make a dash for Dane. As lightning fast as the loireag was, Krea was faster. The faerie reached the boundary of the tree and grabbed for Dane’s knot. Dane screamed and jerked back, but before the loireag closed his hand around the treasure he sought, Krea had managed to hurdle the many upturned roots and had the creature by the waist. She tossed it like a dead fish.
The faerie slid across the ground, tumbled over, and scrambled to its feet. Now covered in dust, it spun around to face its attacker. Sorin yelled from somewhere near the tree, “Don’t let it bite you, Krea.”
The creature raised itself up to his full stature and hissed at Krea, who was now its goal. Krea stepped toward the small water faerie and threw out her arms. She intended to yell at it, but the sound that followed was anything but human. It was at once the shriek of a massive bird and the deep-throated hiss of a protective reptile.
By the time Sorin fought his way free of the roots, sunball collected in his palm, Krea stood alone. The creature had taken the hint and bolted for the forest. Krea stood in the clearing, shaking and sweating, the kyrni energy pulsing off her in waves that were painful to contain. She wanted to let go of her beast—her counter—and be free, but she knew she couldn’t. Not yet. Sucking in a long breath, she tried to quiet the storm raging inside. Only after several calming breaths did Krea realize Sorin’s song was in her head.
When her insides stopped feeling as if they were going to rip apart, the details of what had just happened rushed in. “Dane!” she cried, turning to find the boy.
“He’s fine. The loireag wanted the knot.”
Krea ran her fingers through her wet hair. “The knot? From the tree? Why? What is it for?”
“I have no idea, but it was a bloodlock. It has to be important.” Sorin picked his way back through the roots in the falling darkness. Small branches Krea hadn’t noticed before now blocked his way, and he had to push away several ropes of vines to finally get to Dane’s side. Krea stood near the tree, but didn’t venture into the mess. One of them trying to dig Dane out was enough.
The child was still in shock. He stared up at Sorin in stunned silence, the gnarled ball of blood-spattered wood clenched against his chest and bits of moss and leaves stuck in his hair and clothes. “Are you okay?” Sorin asked, helping Dane to his feet.
Dane just nodded. He was shaking from head to toe, a little reluctant to come out of the tree’s grip. Krea didn’t blame him. She’d have probably planted herself there too, if the tree had saved her. Twice.
With some effort, Sorin managed to carry Dane away from the tree. Krea helped him the last bit of the way, since Dane wouldn’t use his hands to help himself. He still had the burl clenched against his chest, and a hitched horse wasn’t pulling them away.
“What’s a bloodlock?” Krea asked, standing Dane up in the clearing.
Sorin led them to the small footpath that circled the cottage. “When one side offers a gift in exchange for blood, it’s called a bloodlock. It’s a very powerful and binding exchange reserved for the most sacred of gifts.”
“The tree gived me this, didn’t she?” Dane whispered. He wasn’t willing to let loose of the knot with either hand, but he apparently wanted to hold on to Sorin as well, so he was compromising by standing on Sorin’s feet.
Sorin smiled one of his rare smiles. “Aye. That old mistress has been making the knot you’re holding for more years than I’ve been alive. I don’t know why she wanted you to have it, but she did, and she claimed a bloodlock on it. It’s meant for you alone.” Sorin knelt down in front of Dane. “Listen to me. This is a treasure. You can’t give this away to anyone. You can’t sell it. You can’t let anyone take it. Do you understand how very important this burl is? It’s more than just a twisted piece of wood, child. I need you to understand that.”
Dane nodded and hugged the curled piece of oak so tight against his chest that Krea was afraid he would cut himself more on the sharp edges. “No one ain’t never gived me nothing before,” he said, as if that should be enough, and then turned to Krea. “You know, right?”
She nodded. What she wanted to do was give Dane a big hug, but that was a terrible idea for everyone involved, so she just reached over and gave his shoulder a squeeze. It was enough.
“Let’s go. We need to get to the mage right away,” Sorin said, heading toward the road. “Where did the cobbler say the mage lived? At the gate?”
“At the wall.”
“At the wall?”
“At the end of the wall.”
“There ain’t nothing at the end of the wall,” Dane said as they turned onto the main road and hurried up toward the manor.
“You’re supposed to be our guide,” Krea pointed out, pulling her tunic out of his grip. “Don’t you know where she lives?”
“I told you already, I don't know where things is up here ’cause I don’t come up here.”
“Then how do you know that there aren’t any cottages at the end of the wall?”
“She said to see the mage at the end of the wall; that she would be waiting for me. No, wait. Maybe she said at the base of the wall, not that there’s a difference.”
Sorin pulled them off to the side of the road and stared hard at Krea, his brows furled. When he finally spoke, his exasperation was clear. “What did she say? Exactly?”
“Don’t be mad at me. You were the one who stomped off and wouldn’t talk to her, for what reason I still don’t know. And I don’t remember exactly what she said. Something about the mage being near the wall, and that she wanted to see me.”
“She was trading in dragon skins. Nobody inside the Empire trades in dragon skins. Many of the kyrni, being dragons and all, you can see why having traders trying to kill them would be bad.”
Feeling stupid for not putting those things together before, Krea opted for silence as Sorin stared at the massive manor gates looming ahead and drew in a long, deep breath. He closed his eyes. “Krea. Close your eyes and focus really hard. Try to feel a small creek. It will feel like the river you felt earlier, only not as strong.”
Krea gave him a skeptical glance, but he seemed serious. Feel for a creek. That may or may not be there. Not a strange request at all. She closed her eyes and let her mind wander. The sound of bugs filled the air, and the scent of cold wet was rising from the ground. She followed that scent. It led deeper into the woods to a brook that trickled and sang as it splashed over rocks and branches. She clapped her hands. “It’s over there! It’s over there!” she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the place where the manor wall disappeared into the field. “Right over there, Sorin. You should hear it. The brook almost talks.”
“A talking brook?” Sorin smiled. “Sounds about right.”
“Is that where the witch lives?” Dane asked.
Sorin nodded. “That’s my guess, and she isn’t a witch. She’s a mage. Let’s go.”
Dane pulled back. “But didn’t them pulks come from the water?”
“Loireags,” Krea corrected automatically, but he had a point. She paused and looked over at Sorin. Night was nearly upon them. The last traces of the sun’s rays stretched over the horizon as if trying to cling to the sky with claws of amber, gold, and red. “To be fair, we don’t know where they came from.”
Dane nodded. “Well? How does you know the witch didn’t send them?”
“She isn’t a witch, Dane. At least, I don’t think she is. She’s a mage, and it’s rude to refer to a mage as a witch. Besides, no one really sends a loireag to go do anything. That would be like sending a cat to retrieve a fallen bird. You just wouldn’t do it.” Sorin started to grab the boy’s hand to reassure him, but Dane pulled it back to better guard the oak knot that he still held against his chest. Instead, Sorin smoothed the child’s still damp hair and smiled down at him. “I can protect us from the loireags if they show up again.”
After several long seconds, the boy finally made his decision, grabbed the end of Krea’s tunic with one blood-blotched fist, pulled the wood burl against his chest with the other, and nodded. “Okay, we can go see the witch.”
Chapter 12 - Mage
They followed the wall into the meadow that surrounded the regent manor. After a warning growl from Krea, Dane settled for walking between her and Sorin, but he kept his hands to himself. The sweet scent of water plants and damp soil led them to a small brook bubbling along the ground not far from the wall. It was too wide to jump, but not nearly the river that sustained Ryth. At its brim, the trio paused.
“Krea, do you see anything?”
She glanced at him, but his attention was on the forest in front of them. “What am I looking for? Loireags?”
At the mention of the boy’s pulks, Dane nearly climbed under Sorin’s tunic. Sorin grabbed his shoulder reassuringly and continued peering into the darkness. “No, a broche. It will probably look like a small knoll or hill in the darkness. A half-buried cottage. They are almost always round.”
“Well, if she’s expecting us, like the cobbler said, the least she could have done was set a lamp burning.” Krea said, venturing a step too close to the river’s brim and backing away with a slosh. “I hate rivers!“
“But there is a light,” Dane said, pointing in the direction of the field. “Can’t you see it?”
Krea squinted into the darkness, hoping to make out some pinprick of an oil lamp, but saw nothing. When she glanced at Sorin, he just shook his head. “Show us,” Sorin said, taking Dane by the hand. “You lead the way and watch for the water.”
Dane ventured forward, hesitantly at first, but growing more confident with each step. He led them to a narrow footpath that followed the creek, and from there, they worked their way farther into the field almost to the backside of the regent manor’s wall.
In due time, the path took them to a stand of several large oaks interwoven with the occasional towering rowan tree. The entire grove wasn’t a stone’s throw from where the small brook broke away from a larger tributary that served as the water supply for the regent manor, and in its center was the broche that Sorin predicted. A dim light glowed from around a shuttered window, but even if the cottage had been perched on a hill rather than half buried in an oak grove, Dane couldn’t have possibly seen the light from so far away.
Sorin stepped up to a small round door. The broche looked small from the outside, barely large enough to house one person. It was dome shaped, half buried, and covered with field grass and rushes. To Krea, it looked very much like a round toad rising out of the forest floor. But she had heard the rumors of these little houses the mages built. Inside, it would be a different creature altogether. If the stories were true, the back of the broche tunneled into the ground, ending in multiple rooms and even caverns. How a mage built those rooms and what she did in them was the stuff of legends.
Sorin knocked several times and stepped back. He looked uncomfortable, even nervous. After a long pause, the door creaked open, releasing the refreshing scent of crushed herbs into the clearing. In the yellow lamplight that yawned from inside stood a tall, sturdy woman of at least fifty years wearing a simple brown wool dress and a pleasantly bemused smile.
Age was stealing the deep chestnut brown from her hair and leaving streaks of silver in its place. Instead of the long plaited hairstyle most women chose, the mage wore several long braids of varying thicknesses falling down her back and a few thin strands plaited with bits of thread and what looked like vines. Although she couldn’t be sure since the mage was standing on the steps leading down into her broche, Krea guessed the woman to be nearly as tall as Sorin and every bit as physically fit.
Leaning on the doorway, she took in the group one at a time and shook her head. “Well,” she began, turning her half smile back on Sorin. “You finally made it. Caller, you are late.”
Sorin didn’t speak. After a long, painful pause that the mage was willing to give him uninterrupted, he shifted on his feet and started to stammer. “I... uh… I pray your pardon, milady, we had to bathe.”
The mage cocked her head to the side in sincere disbelief. “A bath?” she asked, nearly laughing. “You’ve been bathing for eight years?”
Sorin only stared. Krea stared with him. She tried to decide if she should say something, but the stories she had heard always stressed how serious it was to disrespect a mage, so she opted for silence. If the woman was crazy as a rabid badger, she didn’t want to be the one to draw her rage.
Sorin stood in silence for several eternal minutes. In the end, he wiped his hands on his breeches and shrugged. “I don’t know what the proper response to that question would be, milady.”
The mage smiled. “I can’t imagine that there is one. Please, Tal, come inside and show me what you have brought now that you are finally here.”
Dane and Krea both looked at each other as Sorin waved them forward and stepped boldly through the small archway and
down into the mage’s cottage. After exchanging a silent agreement to both run if they needed to, they followed him in.
The main room of the broche contained a small hearth and several large, twisted roots that had been fashioned into crude stools. A small round table displaying an assortment of herbs and roots stood near the hearth, and another longer, sturdier bench ran along the back wall. The room wasn’t so small that the four of them were lacking for space, but it was quaint enough that the small fire burning in the hearth and the one oil lamp hanging over the workbench lit the entire entry and even cast an eerie glow into the passageway that Krea was sure led into the bowels of the earth.
Dane grabbed at Krea’s tunic again and nearly pulled it off her shoulder trying to jerk her away from the opening. “If you don’t let go of my tunic and stop pulling on my belt, I will rip your arm off and feed it to a pulk,” Krea hissed, trying for subtlety.
“You don’t believe in no pulks,” Dane spat back without looking at her, but he released her tunic and went to stand by Sorin’s instead.
The mage surveyed the three of them with a laughing smile. “I am Arie. You would think that as long as I have been waiting for you, I would know your name, but I’m afraid I don’t.”
Krea decided to abandon any hope of trying to figure the woman out. Either she was crazy, or she was a wizard Krea didn’t want to make mad. Either way, this was going to end poorly. Instead, she watched Sorin place the flat of his left fist against his forehead, wrap his right arm behind his back, and bow his head in a formal show of respect that Krea had only seen done a few times in her life. “I am Tal Sorin, son of Rynel, caller and last in the line of Nalrashi. My first service is to the goddess, and it would then be my honor to serve you, mistress Arie.”
Hand and Talon (World of Kyrni Book 1) Page 18