by Marc Secchia
Kevin, to his everlasting surprise, blurted out, “Can we do that again?”
“Excuse me?”
His smile crinkled his eyes at the corners, but his heart quivered within his chest. “I’m not sure I got it quite right the first time, dear Alliathiune. Has the world stop spinning for you? Is it only the two of us, in all Driadorn, for whom the stars sing?”
“You are a very silly man,” she said, closing her eyes and tilting her head upward. “Kiss me again and I’ll let you know.”
* * * *
Softly they trod through the darktime, hearing the sounds of celebration behind them slowly become swallowed up in ambient noise of the great waterfalls that leaped down from the heights of Elliadora’s Well to form Driadorn’s seven great rivers. For a time they stood within the Sacred Grove, not speaking, simply being together.
The heart of every Dryad was compassion, he thought. Where was the compassion in an act that required her death? A blackmail and an attempted suicide; a mystery hidden for five thousand Leaven seasons! Why? This would take courage of a league far greater than facing Dark Wizards and Elemental Dragons. Was he ready to help her die? Maybe he should just stand her at the edge of a cliff and push–that would be easier. Not this reverse seduction, him pretending not to know what was happening and she, the enchantress, slowly reeling in her willing accomplice.
The Dryad began to sing.
Alliathiune’s low humming blended with the darktime sounds at first, so that it was some moments before Kevin perceived the enchantment melodiously woven about him, a silken-threaded caress of magic that drew him into her song, and from there into her dance. Suddenly her tiny bare feet were skipping across the grass, twirling them about the Elliarana in a crescendo of breathless passion, before spinning them out into the open once more. Kevin danced as he had never danced before. The song lured him on, lifted him, made anything and everything possible. The magic quickened primal parts of his being. His feet tapped from place to place with fey lightness, his heart tripped, and his entire world narrowed to her laughing lips and deep hazel eyes, fixed on him as she sang her ancient Dryadsong–a celebration of life, of the Forest, of the longing whisper of wind amongst leafy boughs and the joys of roots digging deep into loam, drawing nutrients from the soil, of the timeless rhythms of budding and growing, aging and dying. The deep, brooding, immutable magic of Driadorn’s Mother Forest pervaded it all, sung into being by words older than the most ancient of its trees.
Kevin’s joy was immense. He was lost in the wonder of it all. If this were his last living memory, he thought hazily, then he would sink untraceably in a torrent of ecstasy the like of which he had never imagined. Curiously, the implicit surrender gave him a breathtaking freedom. He was released from the old demons–this was so different, so soft and intimate, so right! He was released into love, knowing at last the power to love Alliathiune unconditionally, to love her with every fibre of his being.
Without his knowing how it had come to pass, Kevin found himself looking up at the Arch of Indomalion. His clothes and hers were gone, surrendered to the power of the dance. The Dryad’s movements, her touch and her ardour, seemed touched with an elemental prerogative that resounded like horns in the deepest recesses of Kevin’s soul, demanding yet gentle, fulfilling what he had fought so long to deny, bringing repressed hurts to the fore and tenderly kissing them away.
And yet, she held back. He questioned her with his gaze.
Abruptly, with a sharp shudder, Alliathiune gasped, “Kevin! Run away!” And she groaned, a sound that seemed torn from her body by the Dark Wizard’s cruellest sorcery. “Oh Kevin, please … just go!”
“What? Why?”
“You don’t know … you cannot!”
“I know, dear one,” he said. “You must make this sacrifice for the Forest. There is no other way. I love you, Alliathiune, and I wish with all my heart did not have to be so.”
He sensed in her a restless, seething power, her magic like a snake in a tunnel, ready to slither into the light. The Dryadic patterning on her arms and legs began to writhe with intense, consuming power. Imbued with strength beyond that of natural flesh, Alliathiune locked him against her body, trapping him beneath her. Kevin felt his eyes grow wide. Panic struck deep within him. Now who was the elemental power? She was the Forest, the great Mother, a force of Nature which swept the floodgates irresistibly wide and blasted through his defences like wildfire across a drought-stricken meadow. Her might was staggering. He tried to shield, somehow, but the Dryad had a hold of him on so many levels he simply had no idea where to start.
“Kevin!” she screamed. “Please, stop me, oh please, please …”
Ice spread in his veins. This was nothing to do with his unworthiness. He could never be worthy. Where was the danger? It was not from his side, that he knew more clearly than she could possibly be aware of–so it had to be something to do with her. Bitter laughter welled up in his heart as he remembered his earlier conclusion–there was nothing dangerous about mating with a Dryad, was there? Did Dryads even mate with men? As Zephyr had suggested, was beneath the Arch of Indomalion the only place where a Dryad could mate with a Human man? In the legend, Elliadora had not killed Indomalion.
Did she intend to kill him for his seed? That was impossible. It could not work like that, surely? Travesty, mockery … truth? Akê-Akê had once called Dryads parasites. Kevin had misunderstood, referring to their symbiotic relationship with the Forest. But now he realised that there might be more to the Faun Loremaster’s assertion than had first met the eye. There might be magic latent within her, a stormtide of magic, rising along with her passion. There might be the antithesis of Dryadic nature, a perversion–but why? He did not understand!
Alliathiune struggled, desperately trying to hold back, but her Seer magic was the essence of her very being. He sensed her struggle; felt the way it ravaged her, the dark patterns blossoming and spreading across her face, neck, and shoulders, her feet and knees changing and rooting themselves in the earth either side of him, of the fear that ruled her, body and soul, at that moment.
“I’ll kill you! Not me–you!”
He bleated, terrified, “Don’t you love me, Alliathiune?”
“It’s … because I love you!”
Her mouth roared the words; they hammered upon his ears and turned his logic upside-down. Kevin’s mind reeled. At last, all was clear. The power of opposites. This was the Seer’s sacrifice–she could not love, for her love would kill. Passion unleashed in its deadliest form. All the while, as he admired and encouraged her noble sacrifice for the Forest, he had been digging his own grave. And now he had leaped right into it.
Again, Alliathiune groaned, tearing savagely at her face with her fingernails. “Stop it, Mother … stop it! I can’t kill him … why? Why this, for love?”
Shuddering with a shocking need, the Dryad pressed herself against him. Her fingers grew tendrils that pinned his hands to the ground. Kevin fought like a trapped animal, but the tiny Dryad was filled with insane strength. Sobbing, screaming, devastated with the uncontrolled power of her magic, the Rites of Aliddiune began beneath the Arch of Indomalion, where legend told that Elliadora had lain in her lover’s arms and conceived the Elliarana. A Dryad’s roots tore the sacred greensward. Her body writhed grotesquely above her beloved, and the Human fought for his life. What a Dryad feared most, what her essential nature rebelled against more than anything, was about to come to pass.
The Forest was life, but this was death.
The Forest was love, but this was hatred and fear.
The Forest was hope, the promise of new growth, but this was a desecration.
Kevin fought her magic frantically, but he found no power that seemed to work against it. Alliathiune’s Dryad magic was organic and cell-deep, affecting him at a level beneath conscious thought. His own body worked against him, gladly changing from flesh to plant, from person to dead wood. The path to death was good. It swept him along like a river in fu
ll spate. The pleasure was exquisite. Not even his fate could detract from that. He would die smiling.
Could he surrender? The magic would consume him utterly. Could he redirect it? No, the Dryadic magic operated in paths he had never imagined. Could he battle? Yes, but her hold over him only seemed to grow the stronger. The entire power of the Mother Forest, it seemed, bore down upon him through Her disciple; Alliathiune the Dryad was as helpless before that demand as her quarry. His body was no use any more, save to the Dryad’s and the Forest’s needs. But his mind remained free.
And in that crucible, he finally grasped what must be done. The fear had to be conquered, or she could never be free.
“You can’t kill me,” he said. “That’s not me.”
Alliathiune’s hair flew over her face as she looked to her right.
“That’s only my body. The real me, the part that matters, is over here.”
Her head snapped to the left. “Kevin?”
“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said. “You can’t kill me. Nothing you can do will kill me. I love you, Alliathiune.”
“I … can’t?” she panted, staring about wide-eyed.
“Why are you so afraid, good Dryad? What do you fear?”
She shook her head as if to deny his voice in her ears. Her body moved with an impetus all of its own, a most delightful pulse of life and spoiled love, and almost–almost, he was overcome. But Kevin imagined he was the same blue as his hand, the living dead flesh, the flesh imbued with magic that gave him the strength to be opposite, different, the counter-argument to reality.
“Dryad magic does not work beneath the Arch of Indomalion,” he told her. “Did you not learn your histories? Beneath the Arch Elliadora lay with her beloved, and all was well. The Sacred Grove was formed. Indomalion did not die. He and Elliadora live yet, in the sun and the Forest around us, and you know as well as I that their spirit is alive and well here, in this place. What do you fear, my beloved? Why?”
“B-But,” she stammered, “every D-Dryad who loves … and a Seer m-most of all … it must be done as a purely selfish act, without feeling, or the magic surges up, uncontainable–”
“Not only in passion, but also in fear,” Kevin interrupted, “and mostly, because of your hatred of what is anathema to every Dryad. Only your terrors give the magic voice. It is self-defence. How did the Dryads ever go so wrong? It’s … insane. It’s not Elliadora’s way, as surely as I live and breathe!”
After a long, stunned silence, Alliathiune’s throat worked and suddenly she began to laugh. She laughed as though it hurt, as though she were purging an appalling, long-suppressed pain. Each peal of laughter was wrenched out of her innermost fears. Soon, he could not tell if she was laughing or crying. Her face, having darkened to a stormy black-green, began to clear, and her Dryadic patterns reformed themselves on her skin. Her wild, desolate eyes surrendered but slowly to the knowledge growing within her; the uncertainties still present and ready to flee into horror once more, but the desperate flowering of her magic was cut short.
Her gaze came into focus. “By the Hills, good Kevin, how are you whispering in my ear when your mouth is clearly elsewhere?”
“I’ll tell you something else. I can do this.”
“Kevin!”
“And this, too.”
She jumped. “Kevin Jenkins, you … scoundrel!”
Her hands turned back into hands once more and she leaned back, evidently not ready yet to relinquish her perch, but relaxing visibly as she tucked her hair behind her ear with a self-conscious gesture. Her roots unwound, her magic subsided, and in a moment, she found her smile again. The Dryad magic released its death-grip upon him. Kevin silently reversed the changes which had begun to turn him into a lifeless hunk of wood. He did not otherwise dare to move.
For a very long time, it was all they could do to smile at each other. Slowly, the terrors passed and vanished into the darktime. Delicately, belief blossomed within them. It could be. It would be. But it was so difficult to believe.
The Dryad murmured, “So if I can’t kill you …?”
An unseen pair of lips nibbled her ear.
“Oh Kevin …”
“I rather fancy the ring of ‘Mighty High Wizard,’ at this moment,” he suggested, “especially if it makes you say, ‘Oh Kevin’ like that again.”
“You impudent man–it’s a serious question!” But Alliathiune caught her breath in a new realisation. “Dear Kevin–I can call you that now, can’t I? Dear Kevin, dearest Kevin. Please tell me–”
“That all is for love, and as it should be?”
Her eyes became wells of wonder and desire; her voice lowered to an awed whisper. “But the Forest still needs a Seedling. And all the magic of Driadorn, along with my own body, tells me that this darktime is the right time. I beg you, good Kevin … I beg of you, can it be, that this between us … it is real? I’m not dreaming?”
“So it is.” Kevin reached for his beloved Dryad. “No begging required. Why don’t we start over, Alliathiune–without the nasty killing business? That’s so yester-lighttime’s magic.”
“You silly man!”
“You even sillier Dryad.”
Alliathiune shut his mouth with a kiss. One kiss led to several more. Soon, the Rites of Aliddiune were in gentle motion, where Dryad Seer and mortal Man moved in a harmony as old as time itself; history turned full circle, beneath the Arch of Indomalion in the Sacred Grove of Driadorn.
But this time, it was right.
Chapter 30: The Seedling
As the light of a new dawn gilded the gigantic trees of the Sacred Grove, Kevin awoke to find Alliathiune regarding him solemnly from a distance of several inches. Her hazel eyes gleamed, enigmatic wells he could lose himself in forever, and his eyes traced the intricate filigree of her Dryadic patterning from the corners of her eyes, over her cheekbones, and down to her still, pensive lips. But very soon the corners of her mouth curved upward as they gazed at each other, without speaking, just drinking in the moment.
It was true. It was good. Kevin wanted to pinch himself–last darktime had not been just a dream, had it? His heart was doing strange flip-flops in his chest. Was this love? This feeling that seemed to both squeeze and release him simultaneously, to be his own Seventy-Seven Hills he could run over, free as the wind whispering in a Forest glade …
Alliathiune reached up to ruffle his curls. “The Peace of the Sacred Grove to you, dear Kevin,” she said.
It tickled him how she stressed the word ‘dear’ as though it were a fresh delight every time she said it. “And also to you, my dear girl.” He cleared his throat. “Although, may I point out, you didn’t give me much peace last darktime.”
“You grow bold, Mighty High Wizard. You started it.”
“I did rather, didn’t I?” Kevin agreed, smugly. “Several times.”
“Oh, you were definitely my Mighty High Wizard, all darktime long,” said the Dryad, in a sly tone that made him turn the same colour as his hair. “Is this what it feels like, to be allowed to love? I never knew … I never let myself hope …”
“Don’t cry, my heart.”
“I’m happy.”
“Barbarian outlander, he make little Dryad cry.”
“I knew an outlander once,” she sniffled, “but he became a friend of the Forest and was no outlander anymore.”
Kevin gulped in turn. Oh, dash it all. Could he not even control a few simple tears? He was grateful, absurdly grateful, that Feynard was not just a dream the Dryad Seer and the Unicorn had once dreamed; because reality was more beautiful, and bittersweet, than he could ever have imagined. This was what it felt like to awaken in a cocoon of warm Dryadic magic, next to the most beautiful woman in the world, who he loved to the point of distraction. Yes, this was what it felt like to be whole, and healed, like the Forest itself.
After a long and involved apology which quickly dissolved into more than just cuddles, Kevin reluctantly rose to find wherever their clothes had bee
n abandoned the previous darktime. He saw Snatcher coming up from the river, and Zephyr rustling up a little fruit and waycrust with the help of his telekinetic horn powers. Both creatures glanced meaningfully in his direction with expressions that suggested he was about to be teased within an inch of his life.
Returning to the Arch, they helped each other dress. Kevin plucked the inevitable twig out of the Dryad’s hair, while she tried to make sense of his impossible curls.
Then he linked arms with Alliathiune, and said, “This would make a fine place to be married, wouldn’t you say, dear one? Make a decent woman out of you and all that.”
“We must plant our Seedling in a moon.”
“So soon?”
Alliathiune squeezed his arm, laughing merrily at the mild panic evident in his response. “I suppose I should explain that she will grow for seven Leaven seasons before she is born? You’ve time to get used to the idea.”
“That long?”
“Make up your mind, good Kevin. Dryadic lifecycles are different to Human. So are our traditions, but I would gladly start a new one with you. Many creatures marry in different ways, but not Dryads, because of our dark history. But I love you, and would gladly commit to you. You were so, so sweet last darktime. Imagine thinking I was the one who would die?”
“Logical, but ever so wrong.”
“Are you admitting a mistake? You, good Kevin?”
“Are you asking for trouble? You, good Alliathiune?” He drew her into his arms. “So, darling, with the circle of the Elliarana complete …?”
“The Forest’s magic will be whole.”
“We should go find your mother. She’d want–”
“You read my letter! Kevin!”
He hung his head. “Sorry. Only the bits I could understand. I knew the Dryad Queen was trying to force you–”
As quickly as she had erupted, Alliathiune subsided against his chest. “Yes, my Aunt has a few things to answer for, doesn’t she?” she said, ominously. “So you knew I was trying to seduce you! I desperately didn’t want to either–believe me, I hoped against all hope a different way could be found. But the Forest’s need was so overwhelming, especially in this place, that I could not withhold even though I wanted to. And you were making it so easy for me, you rascally man. I should have suspected you were up to no good.”