Клэр Белл - The Named - The Complete Series

They had many spectators, for those in the clan who did not have treelings were drawn by curiosity. There was still some uneasiness about having such creatures tend the Red Tongue, but Ratha sensed that it was diffuse and no longer the threat it had been during Shongshar’s rise to power. She shared Ratharee with those who wished to try working with a treeling and encouraged Thakur, Bira and Fessran to do the same.

As Ratha lifted the first pawful of earth from the threshold of the old fire-lair, she hesitated before throwing it aside. Despite her words to the Firekeepers, she felt she had set her feet in Shongshar’s pawprints and hoped she would have the strength not to take the trail he had followed.

She felt Ratharee on her shoulder, turned her head to nuzzle the treeling and felt calmer. The creature’s gentle touch eased the loneliness that sometimes came over her even when she was close to her own kind. Ratharee couldn’t speak, but she seemed to say as much with her nimble hands and bright, wise eyes as the Named did with words.

The treeling shared much more than the skill of her hands. She was a companion who never questioned or judged. Her presence seemed to lessen Ratha’s fierce need to prove herself to others, and she felt herself gaining a stability of mind that she had not known before.

When she was directing Ratharee in a task such as laying out kindling, she often felt that the treeling knew what she wanted before she nudged her arms or gave the clicking sounds that she followed. The understanding between them grew less that of one creature serving another and became a partnership. In concentrating on a task, the bond between them grew so strong that she and Ratharee were one being with shared abilities beyond those of either partner.

She also realized that the relationship was more equal than she had first thought. While she experienced the tree-ling’s dexterity as if it were her own, she sensed that her companion was gaining knowledge treelings had never had. She gave Ratharee her strength and her speed as well as her ability to see at night. Her intelligence too she shared, although she often wondered, when she looked into the startling depths of Ratharee’s eyes, whether treelings might have a cleverness of their own that was equal to that of the Named, even though it was different.

When she ventured to ask her companions how they felt about their treelings, she found she was not alone in her discovery. Even those of the Named who had only watched or worked with them for brief periods seemed to benefit from the contact.

Now she scraped away another pawful of dirt as others of the clan began to dig with her. She glanced at Thakur, alongside her, and noticed that Aree was looking a bit bulgier than she had been.

“She’s pregnant again,” said Thakur with a grin. “Don’t ask me how she did it.”

Ratha continued her task, feeling happy. Soon there would be more treelings for those of the clan who wanted them. And nearly everybody did.

She sensed this was a coming change for her people, a change more subtle but no less powerful than the bringing of the Red Tongue to the clan. But unlike the use and worship of fire, which raised savage instincts, the growing partnership of the Named with treelings seemed to waken the gentler part of their nature, giving it strength.

It gave her a strange feeling of hope, though she almost doubted it herself as she continued to dig, but it refused to leave her mind. She found herself watching her friends to see whether the change she imagined was real, and she found that it was. Even Fessran, the one who had resisted the treelings and only taken a companion after her illness, admitted she felt the effect. She was no less irascible and her comments were as pointed as ever, but her sudden flares of temper, which made others wary of her, were gone.

Perhaps it was this that gave Ratha a true hope that she could lead her people along a new path. The treelings would serve the Named not only by caring for fire with the skill of their fingers, but by lessening the feelings of loneliness and hunger for those things of the spirit that had driven the Named to frenzied obedience to the Red Tongue.

The flicker of firelight lit the earthen walls and cast a glow over the wet grass of the meadow. A light rain fell in the dusk, but the source-fire was safe in its shelter. The den had been dug deep and well, with holes to vent the smoke and allow the flame to draw. A raised floor of packed earth had been made to hold the fire above any water that might seep in, and an adjacent chamber had been dug in which to stack and dry wood. It was now half-filled with remains of the cave woodpile, pieces of which had been recovered and dried before the watch-fires.

A little while before, Ratharee had ridden on Ratha’s back, bearing the brand to kindle this new source-fire. Now as the flame grew and crackled, it lit the faces of the herders and Firekeepers who gathered before the den.

“Now the Red Tongue’s protection will never fail!” cried Fessran, and to Ratha’s surprise, she gave a joyous leap into the air with her treeling on her back. She landed a little awkwardly, for her injured foreleg was still weak, but she gave Ratha a grin and jumped up again.

The sense of celebration was contagious, and everyone began circling the glowing mouth of the fire-shelter, their coats gleaming in the rain. They sprang and whirled. Even Thakur joined in, with Aree bouncing between his shoulders. It was all the treeling could do to hold on, but the shine in her eyes was excitement, not fear.

Only Ratha held herself back. The circle of dancers seemed to be overlaid by another image that floated before her eyes. That too was a dance, the terrifying frenzy of those who threw themselves into the heated air in the cave, whose eyes shimmered with cruelty and the worship of the fierce light in their center. It was all before her again, the sound, the smell and the racing of her heart until she wanted to cry aloud to end it.

The fire-creature of her dream was there too, rising out of the flame’s center with a shape that was and was not the form of the Named. But as it reared up to claw at the roof of the cave, it seemed to falter and sink back down as the roar of the fire grew muted and the flame itself dwindled … until it was just a glow from the mouth of an earthen den and the dancers about her were her people and her friends. The shimmer in their eyes was joy, and the firelight shone on their power and grace.

Yes, they could dance before the Red Tongue, giving thanks for the light, the warmth and the protection it gave. And they could see the beauty in its strength and rejoice in that without seeking to make it a weapon for others to fear.

And suddenly the dance changed. The treelings had joined in, leaping in a counter-circle from one dancer to the next as if weaving them together.

In a moment, Ratharee sprang from Ratha’s back into the ring of dancers. Rain sparkled on her pelt as she scampered along Thakur’s back and launched herself onto Fessran’s withers.

“The only way you’ll get her back is to join in,” yowled Bira as Ratharee bounced onto the young Firekeeper as she danced around the circle.

And Ratha did.

Later, when exhaustion laid the Named and treelings together in a sprawl amid the soggy grass, Ratha lifted her head wearily to see happy lolling tongues all around her.

“You’ve got the longest one,” she teased, swatting Fessran playfully. “Stuff it back in your mouth.” The treelings scampered out of the way as the two wrestled like cubs and then broke away, panting at each other.

The rain stopped. Those of the clan picked themselves up and went back to their duties or their dens. Fessran and Thakur rose together and he offered to walk back with Ratha to her lair.