the azzie would get me. I couldn’t look
my ma in the eye then. Not if she knew. I
can’t think what that would do to her, if
she knew I was the sort of person that
would kill his own da.”
He looked up then, his face furious,
eyes red with weeping. “I would though.
I’d kill him. You just got to tell me how.”
There was a moment of quiet.
“Okay,” Bast said.
They went down to the stream where they
could have a drink and Rike could wash
his face and collect himself a little bit.
When the boy’s face was cleaner, Bast
noted not all the smudginess was dirt. It
was easy to make the mistake, as the
summer sun had tanned him a rich nut
brown. Even after he was clean it was
hard to tell they were the faint remains of
bruises.
But rumor or no, Bast’s eyes were
sharp. Cheek and jaw. A darkness all
around one skinny wrist. And when he
bent to take a drink from the stream, Bast
glimpsed the boy’s back …
“So,” Bast said as they sat beside the
stream. “What exactly do you want? Do
you want to kill him, or do you just want
to have him gone?”
“If he was just gone, I’d never sleep
again for worry he’d come slouching
back.” Rike said, then was quiet for a bit.
“He went gone two span once.” He gave
a faint smile. “That was a good time, just
me and my ma. It was like my birthday
every day when I woke up and he wasn’t
there. I never knew my ma could sing …”
The boy went quiet again. “I thought
he’d fallen somewhere drunk and finally
broke his neck. But he’d just traded off a
year of furs for drinking money. He’d just
been in his trapping shack, all stupor-
drunk for half a month, not hardly more
than a mile away.”
The boy shook his head, more firmly
this time. “No, if he goes, he won’t stay
away.”
“I can figure out the how,” Bast said.
“That’s what I do. But you need to tell
me what you really want.”
Rike sat for a long while, jaw clenching
and unclenching. “Gone,” he said at last.
The word seemed to catch in his throat.
“So long as he stays gone forever. If you
can really do it.”
“I can do it,” Bast said.
Rike looked at his hands for a long
time. “Gone then. I’d kill him. But that
sort of thing ent right. I don’t want to be
that sort of man. A fellow shouldn’t ought
to kill his da.”
“I could do it for you,” Bast said easily.
Rike sat for a while, then shook his
head. “It’s the same thing, innit? Either
way it’s me. And if it were me, it would
be more honest if I did it with my hands
rather than do it with my mouth.”
Bast nodded. “Right then. Gone
forever.”
“And soon,” Rike said.
Bast sighed and looked up at the sun.
He already had things to do today. The
turning wheels of his desire did not come
grinding to a halt because some farmer
drank too much. Emberlee would be
taking her bath soon. He was supposed to
get carrots …
He didn’t owe the boy a thing, either.
Quite the opposite. The boy had lied to
him. Broken his promise. And while Bast
had settled that account so firmly that no
other child in town would ever dream of
crossing him like that again … it was
still galling to remember. The thought of
helping him now, despite that, it was
quite the opposite of his desire.
“It has to be soon,” Rike said. “He’s
getting worse. I can run off, but ma can’t.
And little Bip can’t neither. And …”
“Fine, fine …” Bast cut him off, waving
his hands. “Soon.”
Rike swallowed. “What’s this going to
cost me?” he asked, anxious.
“A lot,” Bast said grimly. “We’re not
talking about ribbons and buttons here.
Think how much you want this. Think
how big it is.” He met the boy’s eye and
didn’t look away. “Three times that is
what you owe me. Plus some for soon.”
He stared hard at the boy. “Think hard on
that.”
Rike was a little pale now, but he
nodded without looking away. “You can
have what you like of mine,” he said.
“But nothin’ of ma’s. She ent got much
that my da hasn’t already drank away.”
“We’ll work it out,” Bast said. “But
it’ll be nothing of hers. I promise.”
Rike took a deep breath, then gave a
sharp nod. “Okay. Where do we start?”
Bast pointed at the stream. “Find a
river stone with a hole in it and bring it
to me.”
Rike gave Bast an odd look. “Yeh want
a faerie stone?”
“Faerie stone,” Bast said with such
scathing mockery that Rike flushed with
embarrassment. “You’re too old for that
nonsense.” Bast gave the boy a look. “Do
you want my help or not?” he asked.
“I do,” Rike said in a small voice.
“Then I want a river stone.” Bast
pointed back at the stream. “You have to
be the one to find it,” he said. “It can’t be
anyone else. And you need to find it dry
on the shore.”
Rike nodded.
“Right then.” Bast clapped his hands
twice. “Off you go.”
Rike left and Bast returned to the
lightning tree. No children were waiting
to talk to him, so he idled the time away.
He skipped stones in the nearby stream
and flipped through Celum Tinture,
glancing at some of the illustrations.
Calcification. Titration. Sublimation.
Brann, happily unbirched with one hand
bandaged, brought him two sweet buns
wrapped in a white handkerchief. Bast
ate the first and set the second aside.
Viette brought armloads of flowers and
a fine blue ribbon. Bast wove the daisies
into a crown, threading the ribbon
through the stems.
Then, looking up at the sun, he saw that
it was nearly time, Bast removed his
shirt and filled it with the wealth of
yellow and red touch-me-nots Viette had
brought him. He added the handkerchief
and crown, then fetched a stick and made
a bindle so he could carry the lot more
easily.
He headed out past the Oldstone bridge,
then up toward the hills and around a
bluff until he found the place Kostrel had
described. It was cleverly hidden away,
and the stream curved and eddied into a
lovely little pool perfect for a private
bath.
Bast sat behind some bus
hes, and after
nearly half an hour of waiting he had
fallen into a doze. The sharp crackle of a
twig and a scrap of an idle song roused
him, and he peered down to see a young
woman making her careful way down the
steep hillside to the water’s edge.
Moving
silently,
Bast
scurried
upstream, carrying his bundle. Two
minutes later he was kneeling on the
grassy waterside with the pile of flowers
beside him.
He picked up a yellow blossom and
breathed on it gently. As his breath
brushed the petals, its color faded and
changed into a delicate blue. He dropped
it and the current carried it slowly
downstream.
Bast gathered up a handful of posies,
red and orange, and breathed on them
again. They too shifted and changed until
they were a pale and vibrant blue. He
scattered them onto the surface of the
stream. He did this twice more until there
were no flowers left.
Then, picking up the handkerchief and
daisy
crown,
he
sprinted
back
downstream to the cozy little hollow
with the elm. He’d moved quickly
enough that Emberlee was just coming to
the edge of the water.
Softly, silently, he crept up to the
spreading elm. Even with one hand
carrying the handkerchief and crown, he
went up the side as nimbly as a squirrel.
Bast lay along a low branch, sheltered
by leaves, breathing fast but not hard.
Emberlee was removing her stockings
and setting them carefully on a nearby
hedge. Her hair was a burnished golden
red, falling in lazy curls. Her face was sweet and round, a lovely shade of pale
and pink.
Bast grinned as he watched her look
around, first left, then right. Then she
began to unlace her bodice. Her dress
was a pale cornflower blue, edged with
yellow, and when she spread it on the
hedge, it flared and splayed out like the
wing of a great bird. Perhaps some
fantastic combination of a finch and a
jay.
Dressed only in her white shift,
Emberlee looked around again: left, then
right. Then she shimmied free of it, a
fascinating motion. She tossed the shift
aside and stood there, naked as the moon.
Her creamy skin was amazing with
freckle. Her hips wide and lovely. The
tips of her breasts were brushed with the
palest of pink.
She scampered into the water. Making a
series of small, dismayed cries at the
chill of it. They were, on consideration,
not really similar to a raven’s at all.
Though they could, perhaps, be slightly
like a heron’s.
Emberlee washed herself a bit,
splashing and shivering. She soaped
herself, dunked her head in the river, and
came up gasping. Wet, her hair became
the color of ripe cherries.
It was then that the first of the blue
touch-me-nots arrived, drifting on the
water. She glanced at it curiously as it
floated by and began to lather soap into
her hair.
More flowers followed. They came
downstream and made circles around
her, caught in the slow eddy of the pool.
She looked at them, amazed. Then sieved
a double handful from the water and
brought them to her face, drawing a deep
breath to smell them.
She laughed delightedly and dunked
under the surface, coming up in the
middle of the flowers, the water sluiced
her pale skin, running over her naked
breasts. Blossoms clung to her, as if
reluctant to let go.
That was when Bast fell out of the tree.
There was a brief, mad scrabbling of
fingers against bark, a bit of a yelp, then
he hit the ground like a sack of suet. He
lay on his back in the grass and let out a
low, miserable groan.
He heard a splashing, and then
Emberlee appeared above him. She held
her white shift in front of her. Bast
looked up from where he lay in the tall
grass.
He’d been lucky to land on that patch of
springy turf, cushioned with tall, green
grass. A few feet to one side, and he’d
have broken himself against the rocks.
Five feet the other way and he would
have been wallowing in mud.
Emberlee knelt beside him, her skin
pale, her hair dark. One posy clung to her
neck—it was the same color as her eyes,
a pale and vibrant blue.
“Oh,” Bast said happily as he gazed up
at her. His eyes were slightly dazed.
“You’re so much lovelier than I’d
imagined.”
He lifted a hand as if to brush her
cheek, only to find it holding the crown
and knotted handkerchief. “Ahh,” he said,
remembering. “I’ve brought you some
daisies too. And a sweet bun.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the daisy
crown with both hands. She had to let go
of her shift to do this. It fell lightly to the
grass.
Bast blinked, momentarily at a loss for
words.
Emberlee tilted her head to look at the
crown; the ribbon was a striking
cornflower blue, but it was nothing near
as lovely as her eyes. She lifted it with
both hands and settled it proudly on her
head. Her arms still raised, she drew a
slow breath.
Bast’s eyes slipped from her crown.
She smiled at him indulgently.
Bast drew a breath to speak, then
stopped and drew another through his
nose. Honeysuckle.
“Did you steal my soap?” he asked
incredulously.
Emberlee laughed and kissed him.
A good while later, Bast took the long
way back to the lightning tree, making a
wide loop up into the hills north of town.
Things were rockier up that way, no
ground flat enough to plant, the terrain
too treacherous for grazing.
Even with the boy’s directions, it took
Bast a while to find Martin’s still. He
had to give the crazy old bastard credit
though.
Between
the
brambles,
rockslides, and fallen trees, there wasn’t
a chance he would have stumbled onto it
accidentally, tucked back into a shallow
cave in a scrubby little box valley.
The
still
wasn’t
some
slipshod
contraption bunged together out of old
pots and twisted wire, either. It was a
work of art. There were barrels and
basins and great spirals of copper tube.
A great copper kettle twice the siz
e of a
washbin, and a smolder-stove for
warming it. A wooden trough ran all
along the ceiling, and only after
following it outside did Bast realize
Martin collected rainwater and brought it
inside to fill his cooling barrels.
Looking it over, Bast had the sudden
urge to flip through Celum Tinture and
learn what all the different pieces of the
still were called, what they were for.
Only then did he realize he’d left the
book back at the lightning tree.
So instead Bast rooted around until he
found a box filled with a mad miscellany
of containers: two dozen bottles of all
sorts, clay jugs, old canning jars … A
dozen of them were full. None of them
were labeled in any way.
Bast lifted out a tall bottle that had
obviously once held wine. He pulled the
cork, sniffed it gingerly, then took a
careful sip. His face bloomed into a
sunrise of delight. He’d half expected
turpentine, but this was … well … he
wasn’t sure entirely. He took another
drink. There was something of apples
about it, and … barley?
Bast took a third drink, grinning.
Whatever you care to call it, it was
lovely. Smooth and strong and just a little
sweet. Martin might mad as a badger, but
he clearly knew his liquor.
It was better than an hour before Bast
made it back to the lightning tree. Rike
hadn’t returned, but Celum Tinture was
sitting there unharmed. For the first time
he could remember, he was glad to see
the book. He flipped it open to the
chapter on distillation and read for half
an hour, nodding to himself at various
points. It was called a condensate coil.
He’d thought it looked important.
Eventually he closed the book and
sighed. There were a few clouds rolling
in, and no good could come of leaving
the book unattended again. His luck
wouldn’t last forever, and he shuddered
to think what would happen if the wind
tumbled the book into the grass and tore
the pages. If there was a sudden rain …
So Bast wandered back to the
Waystone Inn and slipped silently
through
the
back
door.
Stepping
carefully, he opened a cupboard and
tucked the book inside. He made his
silent way halfway back to the door
before he heard footsteps behind him.
“Ah, Bast,” the innkeeper said. “Have
you brought the carrots?”
Bast
froze,
caught
awkwardly
midsneak. He straightened up and
The Lightning Tree Page 5