Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Shade’s presence had caused trepidation or excitement or both.

“What is this place?” Ore-Locks asked. “It is not overgrown, like the rest of the forest. But the trunks ... they are too large for these kinds of trees.”

“Ahead ... slightly left,” Chane whispered. “Look to that fir.”

Wynn looked down the gully.

The fir tree’s trunk was almost as wide as a guild keep tower in Calm Seatt. The barest hint of a dark opening showed in its base. Some kind of hanging, perhaps aged hide or dyed wool, filled that entrance and made it seem part of the bark until Wynn looked right at it.

After the structures in a’Ghràihlôn’na, she would’ve never imagined that tree. But there it was, a living tree home, like those in the an’Cróan’s wild enclaves. It looked almost out of place in this forest.

“What are you doing here?”

The warning in that lilting voice made Wynn turn quickly, shifting her gaze. And then there she was, coming from the trees, down the slope, walking right through the pack of majay-hì.

Vreuvillä stopped, tensely poised like some wild spirit manifested in elven form. A circlet of braided raw shéot’a strips held back her silver-streaked hair. In place of the skirt draped to her feet, she now wore pants; high, soft boots; and a thong-belted jerkin, all made of darkened rawhide.

“I told you,” she said, “your presence disturbs Chârmun.”

Her Numanese was too perfect for someone who lived an isolated life so far from foreigners, let alone her own people.

Ore-Locks watched her closely but held back. Releasing Chane, Wynn took a step up behind Shade.

“We need to speak with you,” she said.

Vreuvillä moved toward them, barely disturbing the fallen leaves beneath her narrow feet. The mottled bark brown majay-hì paced her.

“Where is your friend, that white-robed heretic?” she demanded.

“He’s no friend or anything else to us,” Wynn answered. “We came all the way from Calm Seatt, and I have no idea how he beat us here.”

“No, I am sure you do not.”

Wynn was too tired of being played at every turn to care what that meant. But she didn’t care for the taunt itself. Then the silver majay-hì from the first small clearing circled into Vreuvillä’s path and passed close along the woman’s side.

Long, tan fingers combed between the dog’s tall ears.

Vreuvillä slowed for an instant. Only her large amber eyes lifted to gaze beyond Wynn. And her nostrils flared.

A chill spread through Wynn. Not because it looked like Vreuvillä could smell what the majay-hì had. Not because the woman might suspect what Chane was. It was that touch that left Wynn shocked in disbelief.

The only reason Wynn could memory-speak with Shade through a touch was because of the taint left by a mistake with a thaumaturgical ritual. Even the an’Cróan and their Anmaglâhk couldn’t do this with majay-hì.

But had Vreuvillä just done so?

“From Calm Seatt?” the woman repeated, and glanced at Shade. “With a majay-hì? I do not think so.”

Wynn tried to recover. “Shade came for me. She’s from what is called the Elven Territories on the eastern continent. Its people are called the an’Cróan—Those of the Blood.”

Vreuvillä closed within reach of Shade. Shade remained quietly watchful, though the woman of the woods didn’t looked down again.

“So, you have met our wayward kin of old?” Vreuvillä said.

“Yes. Several of them are ... my good friends.”

Vreuvillä’s large eyes narrowed. Little enough was known throughout the Farlands of the xenophobic an’Cróan. But almost no one on this continent had ever heard of them until Wynn had returned. Yet Vreuvillä knew of them and their ancient link to her own people.

What else might this woman know of older ways and times? Perhaps things the guild could never uncover from lost scraps of the Forgotten History.

Vreuvillä took a long breath and instantly turned up the broad gully. “Come with me.”

Wynn was still shaken, but she grabbed Chane’s arm. His whole body was trembling.

“Can I help?” Ore-Locks asked, though his offer sounded forced.

This entire venture had been his suggestion, but he now appeared to regret it.

“No, I’ve got him,” Wynn answered.

Chane might be sick and disoriented, but he was still aware enough to act. Wynn didn’t know what he might do in this state if Ore-Locks touched him.

The pack parted as Shade led the way, but majay-hì paced them on all sides. Ahead, the paired silver and mottled bark brown ones flanked Vreuvillä all the way to the great fir’s draped entrance. The woman slipped inside without even glancing back.

When Shade reached the entrance, she hesitated, eyeing Vreuvillä’s escort at guard on either side. Wynn pushed past, pulling Chane inside the tree. She grabbed a stool she spotted nearby.

“Sit and rest,” she said, guiding him to the seat. Perhaps with the forest out of sight, he might calm down.

Ore-Locks stepped in, followed by Shade. When the hide flap closed over the entrance, Wynn looked about.

Vreuvillä crouched before the flickering embers of a freestanding clay hearth at the rear. With a stick, she lifted a char-stained kettle out of the flameless coals.

The interior was bark covered, like the guild’s redwood structure, but the walls here were lined with living protrusions at all possible levels. Those shelves were filled with ceramic pots and jars. The chamber wasn’t as big as the tree from the outside, and Wynn saw another opening at the back draped with a wool cloth.

Someone had guided this tree’s growth, like the Shapers of the an’Cróan. But it was not as old as the greater trees in the city. Wynn turned back as Vreuvillä reached up to retrieve a gray porcelain jar with a wooden stopper.

As before, Ore-Locks remained silent, and Chane seemed beyond speech.

Vreuvillä crouched before the hearth, pulling a bit of yellow root from the vessel and dropping it in a rough wooden cup. She immediately doused it with the kettle’s scalding water. She rose and came at Wynn, but thrust the mug out at Chane.

“Drink it,” she ordered. “Some humans are too human for the forest ... though I have never seen one so affected.”

If Vreuvillä thought Chane was a mortal, Wynn had no intention of altering that assumption. But she doubted the root tea could do anything for an undead.

“He’s my guard ... and companion,” she explained. “He would not stay behind.”

“At least he is not another white-robed schemer.”

Wynn hadn’t come to discuss Chuillyon, but she couldn’t help asking, “Why do you dislike him?”

“Dislike?” Vreuvillä hissed.

Her head dropped forward but her narrow gaze remained on Wynn. Strands of silver-laced hair shifted across her left eye and exposed the tip of one tall ear.

“Sages and their orders!” she said; it seemed to rise from her throat like one of Shade’s rumbles. “They title themselves masters, domins, and premins to seek stipends from their kind, for their own purpose. The whites, so-called order of Chârmun, are a consumption in their midst ... as if they bear any love or reverence for the one tree in all things. But do they teach? Do they bring the people back to what is sacred? No. They hide and manipulate among ...”

Vreuvillä’s voice caught as she looked Wynn up and down, studying the gray robe.

“Even among your kind,” she finished. “That heretic and his sycophants are deviants, fallen from the true way of the Foirfeahkan. They serve themselves, with Chârmun and its children as their tools.”

“That’s not why I’m here,” Wynn said. “There are greater concerns to me.”