Guy Kay - The Summer Tree

It was after this that Ivor had taken him for that last stroll around the perimeter of the camp.

“The axe is yours,” the Chieftain had begun. “From what you have described, I doubt you will have great use for it in your own world, but perhaps it will serve to remind you of the Dalrei.” Ivor had frowned then. “A warlike remembrance, alas, of the Children of Peace. Is there anything else you would…?”

“No,” Dave had said, flustered. “No, it’s fine. It’s great. I’ll ah, treasure it.” Words. They had walked a few paces in silence, before Dave thought of a thing he did want to say.

“Say goodbye to Tabor for me, eh? I think… he’s a good kid. He’ll be all right, won’t he?”

“I don’t know,” Ivor had replied with disturbing frankness. They had turned at the edge of the camp to walk north, facing the Mountain. By daylight Rangat was just as dazzling, the white slopes reflecting the sunlight so brightly it hurt the eye to see.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Dave had said lamely, aware of how asinine that sounded. To cover it, he pushed on. “You’ve been, you know, really good to me here. I’ve… learned a lot.” As he said it, he realized it was true.

For the first time Ivor smiled. “That pleases me,” he said. “I like to believe we have things to teach.”

“Oh, yeah, for sure,” Dave said earnestly. “Of course you do. If I could stay longer…”

“If you could stay,” Ivor had said, stopping and looking directly at Dave, “I think you would make a Rider.”

Dave swallowed hard, and flushed with intense, self-conscious pleasure. He was speechless; Ivor had noticed. “If,” the Chieftain had added, with a grin, “we could ever find a proper horse for you!”

Sharing the laugh, they resumed their walk. God , Dave was thinking, / really, really like this man . It would have been nice to be able to say it.

But then Ivor had thrown him the curve. “I don’t know what your encounter last night means,” he had said softly, “but it means a good deal, I think. I am sending Levon south with you, Davor. It is the right thing, though I hate to see him go. He is young yet, and I love him very much. Will you take care of him forme?”

Mean, unbalancing curve ball. “What?” Dave had exclaimed, bridling reflexively at the implications. “What are you talking about? He’s the one who knows where he’s going! You want me to guard him? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”

Ivor’s expression was sad. “Ah, my son,” he had said gently, “you have far to go in some ways. You, too, are young. Of course I told him to guard you as well, and with everything he has. I tell you both. Don’t you see, Davor?”

He did see. Too late, of course. And clearly, he’d been an idiot, again. Again. And with no time to make it up, for they had looped full circle by then, and Levon, Tore, and seventeen other Riders were already mounted, with what seemed to be the whole third tribe turning out to see them off.

So there had been no last private word. He’d hugged Ivor hard, though, hoping the Chieftain would somehow know that it meant a lot for him to do that. Hoping, but not knowing if.

Then he had left, south for Brennin and the way home, the axe at his saddle side, sleeping roll behind, a few other things behind as well, too far behind for anything to be done.

On the starlit dark of the Plain, Dave opened his eyes again. Levon was still there, watching over them, over him. Kevin Laine would have known how to handle that last talk, he thought, surprisingly, and slept.

On the second day they started just before sunrise. Levon set a brisk but not a killing pace; the horses would have to last, and the Dalrei knew how to judge these things. They rode in a tight cluster, with three men, rotating every second hour, sent ahead a half-mile. Quickly and quietly, Gereint had advised, and they all knew Tore had seen svart alfar heading south two weeks before. Levon might take calculated risks on the hunt, but he was not a rash man; Ivor’s son could hardly be so. He kept them moving in a state of watchful speed, and the trees at the outreaches of Pendaran rolled steadily by on their right as the sun climbed in the sky.

Gazing at the woods, less than a mile away, Dave was bothered by something. Kicking his horse forward, he caught up with Levon at the head of the main party.

“Why,” he asked, without preamble, “are we riding so close to the forest?”

Levon smiled. “You are the seventh man to ask me that,” he said cheerfully. “It isn’t very complex. I’m taking the fastest route. If we swing farther east we’ll have to ford two rivers and deal with hilly land between them. This line takes us to Adein west of the fork where Rienna joins it. Only one river, and as you see, the riding is easy.”

“But the forest? It’s supposed to be…”

“Pendaran is deadly to those who enter it. No one does. But the Wood is angry, not evil, and unless we trespass, the powers within it will not be stirred by our riding here. There are superstitions otherwise, but I have been taught by Gereint that this is so.”

“What about an ambush, like from those svart alfar?”

Levon was no longer smiling. “A svart would sooner die than enter Pendaran,” he said. “The Wood forgives none of us.”

“For what?” Dave asked.

“Lisen,” Levon said. “Shall I tell the story?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Dave.

“I have to explain magic to you first, I think. You were brought here by Silvercloak. You would have seen Matt Sören?”

“The Dwarf? Sure.”

“Do you know how they are bound to each other?”

“Haven’t a clue. Are they?”

“Assuredly,” said Levon, and as they rode south over the prairie, Dave learned, as Paul Schafer had four nights before, about the binding of mage and source, and how magic was made of that union.

Then as Levon began his tale, Tore came up quietly on his other side. The three of them rode together, bound by the rhythm and cadence of Lisen’s tragedy.

“It is a long story,” Levon began, “and much of import comes into it, and has grown out of it.I do not know nearly the whole, but it begins in the days before the Bael Rangat.

“In those days, the days before magic was as I have told you it now is, Amairgen, a counselor to Conary, the High King in Paras Derval, rode forth alone from Brennin.

“Magic in that time was governed by the earthroot, the avarlith, and so it was within the domain of the Priestesses of the Mother in Gwen Ystrat, and jealously they guarded their control. Amairgen was a proud and brilliant man, and he chafed at this. So he went forth one morning in the spring of the year, to see if it need always be so.

“In time he came, after many adventures that are all part of the full tale—though most of them I do not know—to the sacred grove in Pendaran. The Wood was not angry then, but it was a place of power, and never one that welcomed the presence of men, especially in the grove. Amairgen was brave, though, and he had been journeying long without answer to his quest, so he dared greatly, and passed a night alone in that place.

“There are songs about that night: about the three visitations he had, and his mind battle with the earth demon that came up through the grass; it was a long and terrible night, and it is sung that no man else would have lived or been whole of mind to see the dawn.

“Be that as it may, just before morning there came a fourth visitation to Amairgen, and this one was from the God, from Mörnir, and it was beneficent, for it taught to Amairgen the runes of the skylore that freed the mages ever after from the Mother.

“There was war among the gods after that, it is told, for the Goddess was wrathful at what Mörnir had done, and it was long before she would let herself be placated. Some say, though I would not know if it is true, that it was the discord and the chaos of this conflict that gave Maugrim, the Unraveller, the chance to slip from the watch of the younger gods. He came from the places where they have their home and took root in the north lands of Fionavar. So some songs and stories have it. Others say he was always here, or that he slipped into Fionavar when the Weaver’s eye was dimmed with love at the first emergence of the lios alfar—the Children of the Light. Still others tell that it was as the Weaver wept, when first man slew his brother. I know not; there are many stories. He is here and he cannot be killed. The gods grant he be always bound.