Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Vreuvillä raised her head slightly and cocked it aside. Her one exposed eye glanced toward the draped entrance. Shade sat vigil there, as if she could see through the hide drape, and watched the entrance with no apparent concern over Vreuvillä.

“Perhaps so,” the wild woman answered.

Chane caught Wynn’s wrist. She looked down as he set aside the emptied mug. Wynn watched in astonishment as his irises began regaining their lost hint of brown. He nodded to her, looking suddenly fatigued in his relief.

Whatever Vreuvillä had given him had helped, but Wynn reflected on that one strange term—“Foirfeahkan.”

She knew it only from histories learned in early education, though she couldn’t remember how to translate it. It was from some lost dialect of Elvish even more obscure than that of the an’Cróan. The Foirfeahkan were—had been—a spiritual sect, though their origins and their supposed end couldn’t be traced. Wynn had never heard there were any left.

Animistic in ideology, they believed in the spiritual—ethereal and sacred rather than theistic—that existed within this world and not in a separate realm. Not quite like the dwarves, and they considered the center or nexus of it all was in one tree.

Wynn had never considered that that tree had to be Chârmun.

If Chuillyon was some pretender priest in the guise of a sage, then Vreuvillä’s disdain made perfect sense. But Wynn was uncertain concerning the reference to using the tree known as Sanctuary as a “tool.” And what had the woman meant about its “children,” as in more than one? Did that include Roise Chârmune, Seed of Sanctuary, in the an’Cróan’s hidden ancestral burial ground?

No wonder Vreuvillä despised Chuillyon’s order as heretics and traitors. They had potentially turned an ancient belief system into an organized profession.

“What does bring you here ... sage ?” Vreuvillä asked.

Wynn ignored the thin disdain in that final word. She wondered how to gracefully lead into her request. But there was no polite way to broach the subject, and she was tired of subtleties. It seemed this unknown Foirfeahkan preferred directness.

“I believe an enemy from forgotten times is returning,” she said bluntly.

“And?”

Wynn faltered. That should’ve been enough to pique concern or at least interest from anyone who knew even the scant myths. Obviously, Vreuvillä did know.

“I’ve learned it had powerful devices,” Wynn went on. “It used them in the mythical war some speak of. And the devices still exist. They may be the first hint of how—”

“Not the first,” Vreuvillä cut in. “Devices are not how things begin ... but sometimes the means by which they end.”

Wynn fell silent. Did Vreuvillä know more clues—signs—of what was coming? More questions nagged at Wynn, but further hints of what she already knew wouldn’t help with what she sought. Wynn neither wished to tax Vreuvillä’s patience that much nor give Ore-Locks anything more to serve his own hidden desires.

“One device may lie hidden at a place once called Bäalâle Seatt,” Wynn continued. “I need to find that place before the device falls into the wrong hands. If it was a tool of this enemy, it cannot be used again for whatever purpose it served.”

Vreuvillä frowned.

“We’re trying to stop a war,” Wynn went on, all the frustration of recent seasons rising within her. “No one will help! My superiors and others seem obsessed with hindering us.” She drew in a long breath. “Please, if you know anything of Bäalâle Seatt ... then tell me.”

Wynn could feel Ore-Locks’s eyes upon her.

Vreuvillä stood silent, as if waiting for more, but then her expression softened slightly. “And what makes a child like you believe the Enemy is returning?”

“Because I saw the beginning of the end a thousand years ago.”

Wynn began with what she’d learned through Chap and Magiere’s experiences within the memories of Most Aged Father, leader of the Anmaglâhk. Speaking so in front of Ore-Locks was the last thing she wanted, but she kept to only events in general.

Wynn recounted the flight of Sorhkafâré—Light upon the Grass—with the last remnants of his allied forces at the war’s end. Once they reached First Glade’s safety, he and some of his people took a cutting from Chârmun and left this continent. Some of the first Fay-born, those born into varied animals, including wolves who would become the majay-hì, had followed him, as well.

“Sorhkafâré still lives,” Wynn said. “He is now called Aoishenis-Ahâre—Most Aged Father—and I have stood as close to him as I now stand to you. He believes absolutely that the Enemy is returning. I wouldn’t trust him for an instant, but I trust his fear of that.”

Vreuvillä’s voice was strangely calm. “Sorhkafâré, like the great war, is a legend ... a myth among my people. If he truly lived, he would have died long ago.”

Was that some sort of challenge?

“He lives,” Wynn said plainly. “And for his unnaturally long years, he remains convinced the Enemy will return. There are others who’ve come to believe this, as well ... even when they’ve denied so to my face!”

She stepped forward.

“We have to reach Bäalâle Seatt before anyone else learns what we’re after. If you can’t help us, I won’t waste your time anymore.”

Wynn turned away. About to step past Shade and out of the tree, a soft chuckle halted her and she turned.

Vreuvillä smiled at her and sighed tiredly.

“Child, you speak of things too openly, as if ...” and she trailed off, looking about her chamber. “But if nothing else, obviously you do not follow in that heretic’s footsteps.”

“No, I don’t.”

“There are proper ways ... for speaking of such matters.”

Vreuvillä reached for a bowl and pitcher on a shelf, and then began gathering pinches from varied jars. The chamber’s air filled with a cacophony of herbal scents.

“You will wait here while I go for more water,” she instructed. “Do not utter another word about this purpose until I return.”

She slipped past Shade and outside. As the entrance drape settled, Chane struggled to his feet.

“What are you doing?” he whispered. “We know nothing about this woman. Why did you tell her so much?”

His face was still covered in a sheen, and the fingers of his right hand flexed over his left forearm, as if just barely refraining from peeling off his skin. Whatever Vreuvillä had given him hadn’t lasted long.

“She already knows,” Wynn answered. “Weren’t you watching her? She knows of the an’Cróan. Even when she challenged me about Most Aged Father ... she already knew about him.”

“A guess,” he snarled. “And now what? We wait in some unknown place for some unknown woman to do ... what? Make us an herbal tea before giving us any information at all, let alone something of use?”

“Sit down and be silent,” Ore-Locks told him.

Chane spun on the dwarf, but Wynn grabbed his arm.

“This forgotten priestess might well have what we need,” Ore-Locks continued. “If she serves us a feast of stones, you will swallow every pebble and thank her. We have nowhere else to turn.”

Wynn hesitated. “He’s right, Chane.”

This was all they had. And now that they were alone, she needed to know if Shade had picked up anything from ...

“Oh, not again!” she breathed.

Shade was gone. She must have followed Vreuvillä, though why was another unanswered question.

“Stay here,” Wynn ordered Chane. “I’ll bring Shade in and—”

“No,” Ore-Locks and Chane said in unison.

Chane took hold of Wynn’s belt, adding, “Not without me.”