P. Hodgell - The Sea of Time

As to more conventional means of communication, Torisen had sent a post message to Harn asking what had happened to Brier when he had realized that the Kendar cadet had slipped away. He owed such personal attention not only because of Brier’s mother Rose, who had saved his life in their escape from Urakarn, but also because by all accounts Brier was shaping up into something special. In future years, she might well join the ranks of such legendary randon as Harn Grip-hard and Sheth Sharp-tongue. She already had the earned name of Iron-thorn, unusual in one so young, even if she held it in part in honor of her dead mother.

Can’t hang on to your people, can you, boy? came his father’s taunting voice through the locked door in his soul-image. I lost all except those foolish enough to follow me into the Haunted Lands. Are you stronger than I was? Than your sister is? Ha. You pathetic little cripple.

“It’s only a sprain,” Torisen muttered to himself. Snow’s ears twitched at the sound of his voice. “I’ll be well soon enough, dammit.”

But part of him wondered. He had never outgrown his dread of mutilation, stemming from the time at Urakarn when he had nearly lost his burnt hands to infection. A young man might feel immortal. An older one knew that he was not. Was such knowledge good or bad? What if it was hindering him in his role as Highlord? Ardeth had warned Torisen that he held his people too lightly. To them, his consideration might feel like impotence when what they needed most in an uncertain world was a strong hand. Almost anything could be forgiven a lord but weakness.

“I fear, however,” Ardeth had gone on to say, apparently now addressing Torisen’s dead father as, these days, he was wont to do, “that you may have mistaken anger for strength. Use your rage as a tool, not a crutch, if you must use it at all. Never let it use you.”

His former mentor was slipping, Torisen thought, with a shiver. As much as he had sometimes resented the old lord’s high-handed manner, the decay of that formidable intelligence was a fearsome thing.

He wrenched his thoughts back to the postriders carrying his message to Harn. Ten days on the road south to Kothifir at the very least, ten north again. By that reckoning, Harn’s reply was already five days late. It might arrive any time now.

Torisen reined in, listening. From uphill came the muffled thud of axes, then a warning cry and the rip of wood giving way. Branches snapped. The ground shook. He left the road and nudged his horse to climb. Soon Chantrie’s ruined walls loomed over him. A pity, he thought, that no one had ever set about rebuilding it, but then Gothregor on the opposite bank had plenty of roofless, abandoned halls at its own heart. There simply weren’t enough Knorth to restore the ancient fabric of either keep.

Forms moved ahead of him in the fog. One advanced and became his chief forester, Hull, a burly Kendar with a grizzled beard and a bald, lumpy head.

“How goes it?” Torisen asked him.

Hull wiped his brow which dripped with sweat, precipitation, or both. Steam rose from the collar of his open shirt as if from the withers of an overworked horse.

“We’ve our work cut out for us, so to speak, m’lord. Many trees fell during the recent rains when their roots couldn’t hold ’em in the earth. There’s thinning to do too, and pruning, and the alder coppice down by the river is ready to harvest. We’ll have a nice lot of waterproof wood from that, along with seasoning for our cheese.”

“By no account, forget the cheese,” said Torisen dryly. “Well, watch out for pockets of weirding. You’ll recognize them by their brightness.” Huh, he thought; as if the man didn’t know that. “Are there any signs yet of arboreal drift?”

“The sumac always begins to creep with the first thaw. So do other brush.” Hull chuckled. “I had a crew caught up yesterday in a patch of crawling raspberry canes that nearly carried them away. We’re anchoring the more valuable standing trees, in case they get restless. How is it downriver?”

“The water meadow dikes are rebuilt. Now they’re working on the terraces.”

Torisen remembered watching Kendar hoist stone blocks back into place that morning after the flood that had dislodged them the previous year. Before that, the Riverland had been wracked with earthquakes, tornadoes, and fire. Earth, air, fire, and water.

All since your sister came home .

Now, that had to be a coincidence . . . didn’t it?

The water meadow itself would grow the coming year’s crop of hay. Above it, tier on tier, would rise stands of oats, wheat, rye, and barley, unless another natural disaster wiped them out.

Torisen wished that he could lend a hand in the restorations, not that he actually had the strength or skill to do so. God’s claws, at present he could barely dismount without help.

Cripple.

No doubt, though, his people were glad to see him keep his hands clean for once.

“We should be planting peas and beans within a few days,” he said, “as long as the shwupp stay in the river bottoms.”

Hull grimaced. “I hate those sneaky bastards. One wrong step and you’re in a mud pot with your bones half stripped.”

He started as a white shape ghosted out of the trees and trotted past him with lolling tongue and cold blue eyes. Nothing had been seen or heard of the Gnasher since Torisen’s encounter with him in the woods north of Gothregor. Perhaps his broken leg had done him in, as Burr had hoped. At any rate, Yce couldn’t be confined forever.

As they talked, workers passed, bound downhill. Someone below exclaimed in surprise. Foresters started to run, calling questions.

“There’s something unexpected in the coppice,” said Hull. “Your pardon, my lord.”

He hurried off into the fog, axe in hand. Torisen followed more slowly on Snow. A babble of voices rose to meet him:

“Can you see . . .”

“What is it?”

“Damn this fog . . . watch out!”

Wood splintered and rocks churned together. Men shouted in alarm. Something huge was coming up the hill, grinding and smashing its way through the undergrowth. A shape loomed out of the mist.

Snow squealed, spun, and bolted. Before Torisen could rein her in, she cut too close to a tree and slammed his sore knee against it. Dazed with pain, he fell.

The thing was almost on top of him. Bare golden branches swayed back and forth overhead and a massive trunk seemed to reel against the sky. Long fringe roots snaked past him, each tipped with a secretion that ate into the ground and gave the tree innumerable toeholds with which to pull itself along. One nearly lanced through his thigh. The tree which he had hit began to tilt as its own roots lost their grip in the loosened soil. It crashed over, luckily away from Torisen, but the next moment he had tumbled into the cavity left by its root ball. A writhing node of rootlets passed over him like so many wooden snakes, stiff and acreak with the sap just beginning to flow through them. For a moment the tree’s full weight sagged into the hole, pressing him down into the mud. Then it lifted, and the golden willow churned on its way.

People were shouting his name. “Highlord! Blackie! Where are you?”

Torisen spat out mud and croaked back, “Here. In the earth.”

Yce appeared at the edge of the pit, yipping, to be shoved aside. Just as hands reached down to grab him, something under the mud caught his boot and nearly jerked him out of their grasp. Bubbles rose around him through the liquefied soil.

Bloop . Bloop, bloop.

“Shwupp,” said Hull, and pulled.

They extricated Torisen hastily, with such brute force that he thought they were going to tear him in two. Once he was out of the hole, a circle of anxious faces closed around him. Without thinking, he put weight on his sore leg and pitched forward into their arms. Snow, caught, was led back to him and with difficulty he mounted.