“What happened?”
“Basically, he told me he’s doing what he can, not for our sake but for that of his creatures. That I should go to Hell, leave him alone, quit aggravating him or find my ass in deep shit. Oh, my.”
I had looked back to see how Silent had taken my encounter.
“I warned.…” She glanced back, too.
“I think we maybe got trouble. Maybe they recognized you.”
Almost everyone from the Hole had appeared. They were lining up across the trail. The menhirs were more numerous. Walking trees were forming a circle with us at its center.
And we were unarmed, for Darling was there. We were inside the null again.
She had on her white linen. She stepped past Elmo and the Lieutenant and came toward me. Silent joined her. Behind her came One-Eye, Goblin, Tracker, and Toadkiller Dog. Those four still had the dust of the trail upon them.
They had been on the Plain for days. And I had been given no word.…
You talk about your trapdoor on your gallows dropping unexpectedly. For fifteen seconds I stood there with my mouth open. Then I asked, “What do we do?” in a soft squeak.
She startled me by taking my hand. “I bet and lost. I don’t know. They’re your people. Bluff. Oh!” Her eyes narrowed. Her stare fixed, became intense. Then a thin smile stretched her lips. “I see.”
“What?”
“Some answers. The shadow of what my husband is about. You have been manipulated more than you know. He anticipated being found out with his weather. Once he had your Raven, he decided to bring your peasant girl to him.… Yes. I think.… Come.”
My old comrades did not appear hostile, only puzzled.
The circle continued to close.
The Lady caught my hand again, led me to the base of Old Father Tree, She whispered, “Let there be peace between us while you observe, Ancient One. One comes whom you will remember of old.” And to me: “There are many old shadows in the world. Some reach back to the dawn. Not big enough, they seldom draw attention like my husband or the Taken. Soulcatcher had minions who antedated the tree. They were interred with her. I told you I recognized the way those bodies were torn.”
I stood there in the bloody light of the fading sun, baffled all to hell. She might as well have been speaking UchiTelle.
Darling, Silent, One-Eye, and Goblin came right to us. Elmo and the Lieutenant halted within a rock’s throw. But Tracker and Toadkiller Dog sort of melted into the crowd.
“What is going on?” I signed at Darling, obviously frightened.
“That is what we want to find out. We have been getting disjointed, nonsensical reports from the menhirs since Goblin, One-Eye, and Tracker reached the Plain. On one hand, Goblin and One-Eye confirm everything you told me—till you parted ways.”
I glanced at my two friends—and saw no friendship there. Their eyes were cold and glassy. Like somebody else had moved in behind them.
“Company,” Elmo called, without shouting.
A pair of Taken, aboard boat-carpets, cruised some distance away. They came no closer. The Lady’s hand twitched. She controlled herself otherwise. They remained far enough out not to be recognizable.
“More than one pair of hands is stirring this stew,” I said. “Silent, get to the point. Right now you’re scaring the crap out of me.”
He signed, “The rumor is strong in the empire that you have sold out. That you have brought someone high-up here, to assassinate Darling. Maybe even one of the new Taken.”
I could not help grinning. The planters of rumors had not dared tell the whole tale.
The grin convinced Silent. He knew me well. Which, I guess, was why he was watching me.
Darling, too, relaxed. But neither One-Eye nor Goblin softened.
“What’s wrong with these guys, Silent? They look like zombies.”
“They say you sold them out. That Tracker saw you. That if …”
“Bullshit! Where the hell is Tracker? Get that big stupid son-of-a-bitch out here and let him say that to my face!”
The light was weakening. The fat tomato of a sun had slipped behind the hills. Soon it would be dark. I felt a creepy tingle against my back. Was the damned tree going to act up?
Once I thought of him, I sensed an intense interest upon Old Father Tree’s part. Also a sort of dreamy rage coalescing.…
Suddenly, menhirs flickered around all over the place, even across the creek where the brush was dense. A dog yelped. Silent signed something to Elmo. I did not catch it because his back was turned. Elmo trotted toward the turmoil.
The menhirs worked our way, forming a wall, herding something.… Well! Tracker and Toadkiller Dog. Tracker looked vacuously puzzled. The mutt kept trying to scoot between the menhirs. They would not let him. Our people had to stay light on their feet to keep from getting their toes squashed.
The menhirs pushed Toadkiller Dog and Tracker into the barren circle. The mongrel let out one long, despairing howl, tucked his tail between his legs, and slunk into Tracker’s shadow. They stood about ten feet from Darling.
“Oh, Gods,” the Lady murmured, and squeezed my hand so hard I almost yelled.
The kernel of a change storm exploded in Old Father Tree’s tinkly hair.
It was huge; it was horrible; it was violent. It devoured us all, with such ferocity we could do nothing but endure it. Shapes shifted, ran, changed; yet those nearest Darling stayed exactly the same.
Tracker screamed. Toadkiller Dog unleashed a howl that spread terror like a cancer. And they changed the most, into the identical vile and violent monsters I saw while westward bound.
The Lady shouted something lost in the rage of the storm. But I caught its triumphal note. She did know those shapes.
I stared at her.
She had not changed.
That seemed impossible. This creature about whom I had been silly for fifteen years could not be the real woman.
Toadkiller Dog flung himself into the jaws of the storm, hideous fangs bared, trying to reach the Lady. He knew her, too. He meant to finish her while she was helpless inside the null. Tracker shambled after, just as puzzled as the Tracker that looked human had been.
One of Father Tree’s great branches whipped down. It batted Toadkiller Dog the way a man might bat an attack bunny. Three times Toadkiller Dog gave it the valiant try. Three times he failed. The fourth time, what might have been the grandfather of all lightning bolts met him squarely and hurled him all the way to the creek, where he smouldered and twitched for a minute before rising and howling away into the enemy desert.
At the same time Tracker-beast went for Darling. He gathered her up and headed west. When Toadkiller Dog-beast went out of the game, Tracker got all the attention.
Old Father Tree may not be a god, but when he talks he has the voice. Coral reefs crumbled when he spoke. Everyone outside the barren grabbed their ears and screamed. For us who were closer it was less tormenting.
I do not know what he said. The language was none I knew, and it sounded like none I had ever heard. But it got through to Tracker. He put Darling down and came back, into the teeth of the storm, to stand before the god while that great voice hammered him and violent violet echoed round his misshapen bones. He bowed and did homage to the tree, and then he did change.
The storm died as swiftly as it had began. Everyone collapsed. Even the Lady. But unconsciousness did not come with collapse. By the wan light remaining I saw the circling Taken decide their hour had come. They fell back, gathered velocity, cut a ballistic chord through the null, each loosing four of those thirty-foot spears meant for shattering windwhales. And I sat on the hard ground drooling, hand in hand with their target.
Through sheer will, I guess, the Lady managed to murmur, “They can read the future as well as I.” Which made no sense at the time. “I overlooked that.”
Eight shafts arced down.
Father Tree responded.
Two carpets disintegrated beneath their riders.
&
nbsp; The shafts exploded so high that none of their fiery charge reached the ground.
The Taken did, though. They plunged in neat arcs into a dense coral reef east of us. Then the sleepiness came. The last thing I recall was that the glaze had left the three eyes of Goblin and One-Eye.
The Quickening
There were dreams. Endless, horrible dreams. Someday, if I live so long, if I survive what is yet to come, I may record them, for they were the story of a god that is a tree, and of the thing his roots bind.…
No. I think not. One life of struggle and horror is enough to report. And this one goes on.
The Lady stirred first. She reached over, pinched me. The pain wakened my nerves. She gasped, in a voice so soft I barely heard it, “Get up. Help me. We have to move your White Rose.”
Made no sense.
“The null.”
I was shivering. I thought it was reaction to whatever struck me down.
“The thing below is of this world. The tree is not.”
Wasn’t me shivering. It was the ground. Ever so gently and rapidly. And now I became aware of a sound. Something far away, deep down.
I began to get the idea.
Fear is one hell of a motivator. I got my feet under me. Above, the Tinkle of Old Father Tree beat maddeningly. There was panic in his wind-chimes song.
The Lady rose too. We staggered toward Darling, supporting one another. Each groggy step spiced more life into my sluggish blood. I looked into Darling’s eyes. She was aware, yet paralyzed. Her face was frozen halfway between fear and disbelief. We hoisted her up, each slipping an arm around her. The Lady began counting steps. I remember no other labor so damnably great. I do not recall another time when I ran so much on will alone.
The shaking of the earth waxed rapidly into the shudder of passing horsemen, then to a landslide’s uproar, then to an earthquake. The ground around Father Tree began to writhe and buckle. A gout of flame and dust blasted upward. The tree tinkled a shriek. Blue lightning rioted in his hair. We pressed even harder in our flight down and across the creek.
Something behind us began to scream.
Images in mind. That which was rising was in agony. Father Tree subjected it to the torments of Hell. But it came on, determined to be free.
I no longer looked back. My terror was too great. I did not want to see what an ancient Dominator looked like.
We made it. Gods. Somehow the Lady and I got Darling sufficiently far away for Father Tree to regain his full otherworldly power.
The shriek rose rapidly in pitch and fury; I fell down grasping my ears. And then it went away.
After a time the Lady said, “Croaker, go see if you can help the others. It’s safe. The tree won.”
That quickly? Out of that much fury?
Getting my feet under me seemed an all-night job.
A blue nimbus still shimmered among Father Tree’s branches. You could feel his aggravation from two hundred yards. Its weight grew as I moved nearer.
The ground around the tree’s feet hardly seemed disturbed, considering the violence of moments ago. It looked freshly plowed and harrowed, was all. Some of my friends were partially buried, but no one appeared injured. Everyone was moving at least a little. Faces looked wholly stunned. Except Tracker’s. That ugly character had not resumed his fake human form.
He was up early, placidly helping the others, dusting their clothing with hearty, friendly slaps. You would not have known that a short time before he had been a deadly enemy. Weird.
Nobody needed any help. Except the walking trees and menhirs. The trees had been overturned. The menhirs.… Many of them were down, too. And unable to right themselves.
That gave me a chill.
I got me another shudder when I neared the old tree.
Reaching out of the ground, fumbling at the bark of a root, was a human hand and forearm, long, leathery, greenish, with nails grown to claws then broken and bleeding upon Father Tree. It did not belong to anyone from the Hole.
It twitched feebly, now.
Blue sparks continued to crackle above.
Something about that hand stirred the old beast within me. I wanted to run away shrieking. Or seize an axe and mutilate it. I took neither course, for I got the distinct feeling that Father Tree was watching me and glowering more than a little, and maybe blaming me personal-like for wakening the thing to which the hand belonged.
“I’m going,” I said. “Know how you feel: Got my own old monster to keep down “ And I backed away, bowing some each three or four steps.
“What the hell was that?”
I whirled. One-Eye was staring at me. He had a Croaker-is-up-to-another-of-his-crazies look.
“Just chatting with the tree.” I looked around. People seemed to be finding their sea legs. Some of the less flustered were starting to right the walking trees. For the fallen menhirs, though, there seemed no hope. Those had gone to whatever reward a sentient stone may expect. Later they would be discovered righted, standing among the other dead menhirs near the creek ford.
I returned to Darling and the Lady. Darling was slow to come around, too groggy to communicate yet. The Lady asked, “Everyone all right?”
“Except the guy in the ground. And he came close to making himself well.” I described the hand.
She nodded. “That’s a mistake not likely to be made again soon.”
Silent and several others had gathered around, so we could say little that would not sound suspect. I did murmur, “What now?” In the background I heard the Lieutenant and Elmo hollering about getting some torches out to shed a little light.
She shrugged.
“What about the Taken?”
“You want to go after them?”
“Hell, no! But we can’t have them running around loose in our backyard, either. No telling.…”
“The menhirs will watch them. Won’t they?”
“That depends on how pissed the old tree is. Maybe he’s ready to let us go to hell in a bucket after this.”
“You might find out.”
“I’ll go,” Goblin squeaked. He wanted an excuse to put a lot of yards between him and the tree.
“Don’t take all night,” I said. “Why don’t the rest of you help Elmo and the Lieutenant?”
That got rid of some folks, but not Silent.
There was no way I was going to get Silent out of sight of Darling. He had some reservations still.
I chaffed Darling’s wrists and did other silly things when time was the only cure. After some minutes I mumbled, “Seventy-eight days.”
And the Lady, “Before long it will be too late.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“He can’t be beaten without her. It won’t be long before the hardest ride won’t get her there in time.”
I do not know what Silent made of that exchange. I do know that the Lady looked up at him and smiled thinly, with that look she gets when she knows your thoughts. “We need the tree.” And: “We didn’t get to finish our picnic.”
“Huh?”
She went away for a few minutes. When she returned she had the blanket, dirtier than ever, and the bucket. She snagged my hand and headed for the dark. “You watch for the traps,” she told me.
What the hell was this game?
Bargain Struck
Later a broken boat of a moon arose. We did not go far before it did, for there was not enough starlight to risk much movement. Once the moon did rise, the Lady guided me in a slow circle toward where the Taken had come down. We halted in a clear area, sandy but not dangerous. She spread the blanket. We were outside the null. “Sit.”
I sat. She sat. I asked, “What? …”
“Be quiet.” She closed her eyes and went inside herself.
I wondered if Silent had torn himself away from Darling to stalk us. Wondered if my comrades were making crude jokes about us as they labored over the walking trees. Wondered what the hell kind of game had me caught in its toils.
You learned somet
hing out of it, anyway, Croaker.
After a while I realized she was back from wherever she had gone. “I am amazed,” she whispered. “Who would have thought they had the guts?”
“Eh?”
“Our sky-borne friends. I expected Limper and Whisper, up to their old crimes. But I got Scorn and Blister. Though I might have suspected her, had I thought. Necromancy is her great talent.”
Another round of her thinking aloud. I wondered if she did that often. I am sure she was unaccustomed to having witnesses around if she did. “What do you mean?”
She ignored me. “I wonder if they told the others?”
I harkened back, put a few things together. The Lady’s divinations about three possible futures and no place in any of them. Maybe that meant there was no place in them for Taken, either. And maybe they figured they could take their futures into their own hands by ridding themselves of their mistress.
A light step startled me. But I did not get excited. I just figured Silent had chosen to follow. So I was very surprised when Darling sat down with us, un-chaperoned.
How had I overlooked the return of the null? Distracted, of course.
The Lady said, as though Darling had not appeared, “They haven’t yet gotten out of the coral. It’s very slow going, and they’re both injured. And though the coral can’t kill them, it can cause a lot of pain. Right now they’re lying up, waiting for first light.”
“So?”
“So maybe they won’t get out at all.”
“Darling can read lips.”
“She knows already.”
Well, I have said a thousand times that the girl is not stupid.
I think Darling’s knowledge was implicit in the position she took. She placed me squarely in the gap between them.
Oh yeah.
I found myself playing interpreter.
Trouble is, I cannot record what went back and forth. Because someone tampered with my memories later. I got only one chance to make notes, and those now make no sense.
Some sort of negotiation took place. I can still conjure a sense of profound astonishment at Darling’s willingness to deal. Also an amazement at the Lady for the same reason.
They reached an accommodation. An uneasy one, to be sure, for the Lady henceforth stuck very close and kept me between her and anyone else while she was within the null. Great feeling, knowing you’re a human shield. … And Darling kept near the Lady to prevent her calling on her power.