James Clemens - Shadowfall

“Hurry, girls. We’ve a big day ahead of us.”

Laurelle curtsied as they reached the door. Dart tried to repeat her smooth motion, but with the bucket unbalancing her, it came out more as a bumbled parody. She came close to spilling the bucket’s sloshing contents upon Matron Shashyl’s shoes, exposing their crime.

Matron Shashyl didn’t notice, clearly excited. Her cheeks were flushed as she turned away. “We have so much to do! Neither of you are ready!”

Dart sensed a twinge of misgiving.

“Ready for what, Matron?” Laurelle asked, following her out.

“You’re both to be presented to Lord Chrism!”

“When?” Dart gasped, almost dropping the bucket again.

“This very night!”

Dart tasted nothing of her midday meal. It may as well have been made of paste and sawdust. She ate it nonetheless, for it was surely the last meal she’d be offered here.

Laurelle picked at her bread like a nervous crow. She lifted her cup of tea, then set it back down. She didn’t seem to know what to do with herself since Matron Shashyl’s announcement.

“We’re going to meet our god,” Laurelle said for the hundredth time, followed by her usual sigh. “I may just faint… simply swoon away.”

Dart kept quiet and poured more honey into her tea. She couldn’t seem to make it sweet.

The girls had been served their meal on the grand southern terrace that overlooked the walled Eldergarden of Chrism. It was one of the oldest botanicals in all the world, or so they had been told by Jasper Cheek, the magister who oversaw the castillion grounds and towers. “First seeded and planted when Chrism chose this spot for his grounding,” Jasper had said with pride. “He was the first god to marry himself to the land and share his Grace with all. His own hand laid the first seed, watered with his own blessed blood.”

Dart stared across the garden to the millennia-old myrrwood in the center. It appeared more a grove than a single tree. As a myrrwood spread its branches outward, roots would drop from the tips, which upon reaching the fertilized soil would form secondary trunks supporting the tree as it reached out yet again with new branches, growing wider as it grew taller. It now covered a thousand acres. A single tree had become a forest.

“Besides marking Chrism’s land,” Jasper had instructed, “the myrrwood also represents the Hundred. Lord Chrism was the first to place his roots in the land here, grounding and settling. And by his example, other gods followed, spreading new roots across the Nine Lands of Myrillia.”

Dart had walked under the edges of the famous tree. It was gray barked with leaves so darkly green as to appear black in all but the brightest sunshine and so dense that she imagined one could walk beneath its woven branches in the fiercest storm and still stay dry. Under its canopy, she discovered a natural colonnade of arched bowers spreading deep into the garden, a place where lovers met for secret trysts and whispered promises were always kept. It was said that at the center, near the tree’s true trunk, the Heartwood, the bower lay in eternal midnight, lit only by glowing butterflits that nested throughout the branches. But no one could say for sure. It was sacred to Chrism himself. A private sanctuary. None but the first god was allowed near it.

Dart dreamed to see such a place. But now it would never be. She forced her eyes away, upward, denying herself even the view of the garden.

Last night’s storm had passed, leaving behind an achingly blue sky with only the occasional high cloud. Even the air was warm with the promise of winter’s end and the beginning of spring. But all Dart felt was a numbing cold, cheerless and dank, that seemed to have settled at the base of her spine. She shivered where she sat.

“You’ll be fine,” Laurelle said, reaching over to pat her hand. “We’ll both be fine.”

Dart could sit still no longer. She stood up abruptly, startling Laurelle. “I’m going to take a bit of air,” she mumbled apologetically. “Before Matron Shashyl coops us back up in her lessons chamber.”

“We won’t have much time…” Laurelle began to climb to her feet.

“I think I need a moment alone,” Dart said, backing up a step. “Do you mind?”

Laurelle could not keep the wounded look from her face, but she nodded and settled back to her seat. “Shall I wait for you here… so we’ll go together to meet the matron?”

Dart nodded. “I won’t be gone long.” She turned to the curve of stairs that led from the terrace to the gardens. It felt good to be moving, even if it was aimless.

And she wasn’t entirely alone. Pupp crawled from beneath the table, passing ghostily through Dart’s abandoned seat. He had sensed his mistress’s mood and kept himself scarce. But where Dart went, he must follow.

Dart felt a stab of irritation. Though she loved Pupp with all her heart, a part of her wanted to flee from him, to run as fast as she could from all of this.

She reached the edges of the Eldergarden. Cobbled paths wended throughout the vast botanical. Dart strode under an opening arch of ginger roses smelling sweetly with their early blossoms. She chose a path framed by low hedges, keeping to the sun. She passed manicured patches of purple sylliander and wild sprays of rosy-pink narcissus. Small wooden bridges forded stone streams, the waterways dotted below with green lily pads and heavy-lidded flowers. Flashes of aquamarine could be seen in the water, small minnowettes and a few larger carp.

Dart found her footsteps growing ever faster. She hurried along paths, crossing one way, then another. Pupp kept with her, but it was not her ghostly friend from which she sought to escape. It was her own skin. Tears rose to her eyes, blurring her vision.

Her steps became a stumbling trot. The edges of her skirt snagged upon the occasional thorn or snatching bramble, but she ran faster. Sobs shook through her.

She wanted only to keep running. She would not even let the garden wall stop her. She would continue. Banishment was certain. Or even worse punishments: dungeons, chains, whippings. But her worst terror was that the violation in the rookery would be repeated. Even now, the certain doom of this day felt the same. She had no control over her fate.

Her flight through the gardens was not so much an escape as a way to grab back some semblance of power. She could flee, keep running, disappear into the low, shadowed streets of Chrismferry, and never be seen again. It was banishment… but it would be by her own hand, not another’s.

She raced along a path that was gravel rather than cobbles. It was one of the older sections of the garden. Here, the beds ran wilder, overgrown, and the occasional fishpond or stream was coated with green and moved sluggishly, if at all. Trees reached higher, spanning the path. Shadows thickened.

Her feet began to slow. She passed a crumbled line of stone that bisected her path. One of the old garden walls. Over the many centuries, the Eldergarden had grown, spreading south from the river and castillion, requiring old walls to be knocked down and new ones to be raised farther out, continually consuming a part of the central city. It had happened twenty-two times over the four millennia, according to Jasper Cheek.

Dart crossed through the stone row and entered an ancient section of the garden. She was surprised to find the branches of the myrrwood stretching over her. She glanced behind.

The castillion’s nine towers, the Stone Graces, formed a half-moon, cupping the vast Eldergarden within the palm of their battlements. Each tower rose twenty stories, yet only the tops could be discerned between the trees.

Dart found herself frozen in place, pulled in two different directions. A part of her heart begged for continued flight, to escape while she could, but a part of her felt drawn back, to face her responsibilities, to not abandon Laurelle without even the kindness of a good-bye. But deeper still lay a fear of what awaited her beyond the walls of the Eldergarden. The city was an unknown that still terrified her. Would she toss herself to its mercies without hope of redemption?