Around him, the forest light grew dimmer, shaded more darkly as the trees grew denser and taller.
In the dimness, the smell struck him before the sight: the reek of wet goat and the stench of rent bowels. Greshym entered the clearing to find his servant, Rukh, crouched amid a charnel house. The carcasses of countless forest creatures littered the space. The stump gnome had his muzzle buried in the belly of a doe, growling and tearing contentedly.
“Rukh!” Greshym barked.
The hoofed creature sprang straight as if struck by lightning, squealing piggishly. Its tiny pointed ears trembled. “M-master!”
Greshym stared at the gore strewn around the area. Most of the carcasses were only half eaten—he had not been the only one enjoying the varying tastes offered by this night. “I see you’ve kept busy while I’ve been gone.”
Rukh dropped back to the ground, cowering. “Good here . . . good meat.” One hand reached to the doe. Claws ripped off the creature’s rear leg. Rukh held out the bloody haunch. “M-master eat . . . ?”
Greshym found himself too content to be angry. At least the stump gnome had remained where he had left it. He wasn’t sure his spell of compulsion would last so long without renewal. “Clean yourself,” Greshym commanded, pointing to a nearby stream. “The villagers will smell you from a league away.”
“Yes, Master.” The creature loped to the brook and leaped fully into it.
Greshym turned from the splashing and stared back in the direction of the village. This night’s festivities were going to be especially memorable. But first a bit of preparation was in order. He wanted nothing to interfere with his plans.
Greshym planted his bone stave into the soft loam of the forest floor. It stood straight. He waved his left hand over the top, his lips moving. A babe’s wail flowed out of the staff.
“Hush,” Greshym whispered. He reached out with the stump of his right hand. Darkness billowed like oily smoke from the plugged end of the hollow bone. He placed the stump of his wrist within the inky fog, intoning softly, weaving the spell he would use this night.
As he worked, the wailing from his staff suddenly took voice—but it was no babe. “I found you!” The voice echoed out into the darkening woods.
Greshym recognized the familiar rasp. “Shorkan,” he hissed, backing a step.
The smoke above his staff coalesced into a man’s face, eyes glowing red. Even amid the wisps, the Standi features were clear.
Black lips moved. “So you thought to escape the Master’s wrath by hiding in the woods.”
“I did escape,” Greshym spat back, reading the spell woven behind the smoky features. It was a mere search spell, nothing to fear. “And I will escape again. Before this night is over, I’ll have the power to hide from even the Black Heart himself.”
“So you believe.” There was a pause; then laughter flowed from far away. “Moon Lake, of course.”
Scowling, Greshym raised his stump and altered the spell before him, reversing it, tapping into Shorkan’s own energies. For a brief moment, he saw through the other mage’s eyes. The man was far from here—but not at Blackhall. Relieved, Greshym reached deeper into the spell, then suddenly was slammed with such force that he stumbled backward.
“Do not tread where you’re not welcome, Greshym.” The spell severed, and the smoky face dissolved.
“The same to you, you bastard,” Greshym muttered, but he knew Shorkan was already gone. He quickly cast up wards to prevent another penetration.
Greshym scowled at the staff as if it were to blame. It had been risky casting such a powerful spell, one easy to trace. He squinted off to the east as if he could peer through the mountains of the Teeth. “What are you doing in Winterfell?”
Though his nemesis was beyond the mountains, Greshym felt a trickle of worry wheedle into his confidence. He had sensed a dread certainty in the other mage, an amused lack of concern at what Greshym planned. “And what are you up to?”
With no answer, Greshym reached toward the staff, but he saw that a trace of the search spell still remained. He hesitated. He hated to waste magick. Greshym rewove the spell with the residual energy left behind by Shorkan. He waved his stumped wrist.
Smoke billowed out, then swirled back down. A new face formed, old and wrinkled, framed in scraggled white hair. Greshym reached toward the visage, brushing along a cheek. Ancient, decayed, dying . . .
There was little energy left in the spell, but Greshym reached deeper, trying to sense the man behind the fog. “Joach . . . ,” he whispered. “How does it feel, my boy, to wear a suit of sagging flesh and creaking bones?”
He divined the other was sleeping, napping away the late afternoon, back at A’loa Glen. Joach’s breath was a rasping wheeze, his heartbeat a palsied thud.
Greshym smiled and retreated. He dared not reach farther; the boy—or should he say, old man—was still potent in dream magicks. He dared not risk crossing into Joach’s dreams.
Once free, Greshym ended the spell and stared down at his own body, straight and hale. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
It was good to be young again . . . young with power!
Joach woke with a start, trembling all over. The sheets of his bedding were soaked with night sweat and clung to his frail form. The nightmare remained with him, vivid and real. He knew in his heart that it had been no ordinary dream. He felt along the edges of the memory. It did not have the starkness of a Weaving, a dream of portent. It was more like a real event.
“Greshym,” he mumbled to the empty room. The sweat on his body quickly chilled, sending shivers along his limbs. He glanced to the windows, where a soft breeze fluttered the draperies. The sun was already setting.
He dragged his feet to the floor with a groan. His exertions this past day and night had exhausted him. Muscles and joints protested each movement. But he knew that only the company of others would shake the cobwebs of the nightmare from his mind.
Joach reached for his staff, but as his palm touched the petrified wood, fiery pain shot up his arm to his heart. He doubled over with agony, gasping. He stared sideways at the staff. Its gray surface drained to pale white. Streaks of his own blood suffused the stony wood, flowing from the hand that still gripped it.
In his distraction, he had forgotten to don his glove, accidentally activating the blood weapon with the touch of his flesh. As the initial pain subsided, Joach dragged himself up. He lifted the staff. It was lighter, easier to manipulate—a boon of the magickal bonding. He also sensed the dream energy in the wood, waiting to be tapped. Like the staff, it seemed part of his body.
Joach pointed the staff and sent out a tendril of magick. A small rose grew from the half-filled washbasin. Joach remembered the last time he had willed such a creation into existence: the night desert, Sheeshon cradled between Kesla and himself, and a rose built of sand and dream to calm a frightened child.
Lowering the staff, Joach unbound his magick, and the flower fell back to nothingness. Not even a ripple marked the water of the basin.
Just a dream.
The memory of Kesla settled a dark melancholy over his spirit. Joach cradled the staff in the crook of an arm and removed his palm. He wanted nothing of dreams right now.
With the connection broken, the staff faded from ivory back to dull gray. Joach slipped a glove over his hand and took up the staff again. He crossed to his wooden wardrobe. Done with dreams and nightmares, he wanted the company of real people.
Still, as he dressed, the dregs of his nightmare remained. Joach again saw the darkmage Greshym standing in a forest glade, surrounded by offal and torn bodies. A white staff stood planted before him, topped by a cloud of inky darkness. Then those eyes had turned toward him, gleeful yet full of spite. But the worst terror of the dream was the darkmage’s appearance: golden-brown hair, smooth skin, strong arms, straight spine, eyes so very bright. Joach saw his own youth mocking him, so close yet impossible to touch.
Sighing, he settled his cloak in place and c
rossed to the door, bumping across the stones with his staff. He tightened his gloved fingers on the petrified wood and sensed the magick therein; it helped center his spirit. One day, he would find Greshym and take back what was his.
As Joach reached the door, someone knocked on the other side. Frowning, he opened the door to find a young page. The lad bowed. “Master Joach, your sister bids you join her in the Grand Courtyard.”
“Why?”
His question seemed to stymie the youngster, whose eyes grew wide. “Sh-she did not say, sir.”
“Fine. Shall I follow you?”
“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.” The lad all but sprang away, like a frightened rabbit.
Joach followed, thumping along. He knew the way to the courtyard.
The page paused at the stairs leading down to the central part of the keep, looking back. Joach read impatience in his stance . . . and the vague glint of fear in his eyes. He knew what the boy saw. Joach had once walked these same halls himself, a young aide to a decrepit figure. But now the roles were reversed.
Joach was no longer the boy.
The page disappeared down the stairs.
Joach was now the ancient one, bitter and full of black thoughts.
“I shall have my day,” he vowed to the empty hall.
3
As the last rays of the sun melted into twilight, Elena stood in the Grand Courtyard with the others, studying the koa’kona sapling. It seemed a frail thing, dwarfed by the towering stone walls, towers, and battlements of the castle. But its buds were as black as oil, seeming to drip from the stems that held them. Elena pulled her cloak tighter about her shoulders.
“It draws the heat,” Nee’lahn whispered from a few steps to the right. “Like the Grim.”
Elena had heard the stories of the wraiths of the Dire Fell, shadowy spirits that could suck the lifeforce from all they touched.
“Hush,” Meric said at Nee’lahn’s side. “It’s just the tidal breezes, nothing more.”
Meric nodded to Elena. When the elv’in prince had brought word of the tree’s strange budding, Elena had agreed heartily that no harm should come to the tree until its true nature could be discerned, especially as the boy’s life hung in the balance.
Not all had agreed. “We risk much to spare a single life,” Er’ril had argued. But Elena had refused to act hastily, and Er’ril had bowed to her will. Still, he now stood beside her with an ax in one hand. Two guards stood beyond him, armed with pails of pitch and burning torches. Er’ril was taking no chances that magick alone would win out here if something evil arose.
Elena was also taking no extra risks. She had the Blood Diary in a satchel over her shoulder. This was the first night of the full moon. With its light, the book would open the path to the Void, allowing Elena to call upon the unfathomable powers of the book’s spirits. Elena shuddered in the cooling evening. She would call upon this well of magicks only if needed.
“The moon rises,” a voice said behind her.
Startled out of her reverie, she turned to find Harlequin Quail standing on the gravel path behind her. Not a single bell of the hundreds he wore had jingled at his approach. He stood with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. His pale bluish skin shone in the torchlight.
“What’re you doing here?” Er’ril snapped.
Harlequin shrugged, pulled a pipe from a pocket, and began to light the tamped tobacco. “I heard about the kid and his tree. I came to offer what support I can.”
“We have more than enough help,” Er’ril said with a scowl.
“Then maybe I just came out for a moonlight stroll.” His pipe blew to flame. He shifted slightly, putting his back to the plainsman.
Elena frowned at Er’ril and reached to touch Harlequin’s elbow. Earlier, he had left too quickly for her to voice her appreciation for the risks he’d taken to bring his dire news. She could at least acknowledge his concern here. “Thank you,” she said.
He nodded, his gold eyes shining, unreadable. Behind him the wide door of the courtyard banged open, and a dark shadow emerged. A flicker of fright flashed through her.
Harlequin glanced over his shoulder. “Your brother, is it not?”
Elena saw the man was correct. She had sent a page to fetch Joach. Of them all, her brother was the one most familiar with the black arts. If there was foulness afoot here, then his guidance could prove useful.
Her brother shambled over, leaning heavily upon the staff.
“Looks like he could be your grandfather,” Harlequin mumbled around the stem of his pipe.
Joach had not heard the small man’s words. Elena forced her expression to remain bland. Even after so long, the sight of her brother aged and decrepit shook her. “Thank you for coming, Joach.” She introduced Harlequin Quail.
Her brother nodded, eyeing the stranger with suspicion. Between Er’ril and Joach, it was hard to say who was more jaded and distrustful.
“So what’s wrong, El?” he asked, turning back to her.
She quickly explained. Joach’s gaze shifted to the tree, studying it with squinted eyes.
“It was good you sent for me,” he said as she finished. “Whatever magick broods in these dark buds, we’d best be wary.”
She turned back to the tree. “We’ve weapons both magickal and not.”
Joach took in the axes and pails of pitch. “Good, good.” He rubbed his hand along the haft of his staff. She noted the calfskin glove. Since his aging, Joach had been becoming more and more susceptible to the cold.
Nee’lahn stepped forward, Rodricko at her side. “It’s time. The first full moon of summer is near to rising.”
Elena glanced past the castle walls. Half the moon’s full face glowed silver on the horizon. It would not be long. She stripped off her own gloves, exposing the ruby rose of her power. Each hand, from the wrist down, whorled with crimson hues. Elena clenched her fingers and willed the wild magicks in her blood to her hands. Deep inside, a chorus of power rang brighter; she balanced and bent that power to her command. Her right fist glowed brighter with the fire of the rising sun, her left took on the azure hues of the moon itself: wit’ch fire and coldfire.
Reaching to her waist, she slid out the silver-and-ebony dagger, its hilt carved into a rose—her wit’ch dagger. She readied the sharp edge to release the magick inside her, to channel the vast energy of the Void into this world.
But first she nicked the tip of a finger, closed her eyes, and daubed the blood on her lids. A flash of fire flared across her vision with a familiar burn. She opened her eyes and looked upon a new world. All was as it was before, but now the hidden traceries of magick became visible to her spellcast eyes. She noted the silver flicker of elemental fire in Nee’lahn, Meric, even the boy.
But it was the tree that held her attention.
What was once wood and greenery now blazed with inner fire. Channels of power ran up the trunk, branching into its limbs, splitting into stems. Pure elemental energy surged up from the land itself, the magick of root and loam.
She had never imagined such power in the small tree. Each bloom was a torch of magick, burning brighter than any star.
She began to doubt her choice in sparing the tree.
Er’ril sensed her distress. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, biting back her trepidation. If she voiced her doubts, she suspected Er’ril would call for the tree’s immediate destruction. So instead, she simply waved forward.
Nee’lahn knelt by the boy, whispering in his ear. Rodricko nodded his head, his eyes on the tree, as he wriggled out of his boots.
As he struggled, Elena studied him. A strong flame of elemental fire blazed in his chest. But stranger still, Elena recognized the bonds between boy and sapling. Silver filaments connected the tree’s vast energy to the flicker inside the child’s heart. Elena knew Nee’lahn was right. The two were clearly bonded. If the sapling was destroyed, Rodricko would surely fade.
Free of his boots, the boy straightened. br />
Glancing to the sky, Nee’lahn leaned back on her heels, her face a mask of worry. The moon continued its climb among the stars. The night was perfectly clear. Only a bit of sea mist feathered the horizons.
“Go, Rodricko,” Nee’lahn said, shifting her small lute forward. “Waken your tree.”
The boy crossed the open loam, his feet sinking into the soft dirt. Under the branches of the tree, Rodricko lifted his hands to a single closed bud. He did not touch its dark petals but only cupped his tiny palms around it.
The bloom swelled with brightness. Silver moonlight bathed the courtyard.
“Sing,” Nee’lahn whispered. “The moon is risen full.”
Rodricko craned his neck, his boyish features limned in moonlight and shadow. Though his lips did not move, a sweet sound flowed from him. It sounded like the whistle of wind through heavy branches, a soft sighing of notes, the shushed fall of autumn leaves.
Nee’lahn clutched both her hands to her neck, frightened yet proud.
Elena was sure that whatever chorus she heard herself was but a single note compared to what the nyphai woman could hear. The play of magick in the tree was brilliant. Power quickened in the tree and boy. The silver traceries connecting the two grew more substantial. New filaments arced gracefully from the tree and flowed into the boy.
His singing became louder, fuller, deeper.
“It’s happening,” Nee’lahn said.
Er’ril stirred beside her, hefting his ax into readiness. Elena did not doubt that Er’ril could cleave the trunk with a single swing.
A flicker of elemental fire drew her attention momentarily to the other side. Joach had shuffled closer for a better look, his bleary eyes squinted. But the staff he leaned upon was a shaft of pure flame, a font of immense elemental energy. She stared at Joach, not understanding. Her brother, an elemental tied to the magick of the dream, also bore the familiar silver flame near his heart. Yet, Elena could see fiery strands linking her brother to the staff. She opened her mouth to voice her surprise.