Heartwood (Tricksters Game) (26 page)

Belatedly, he realized Griane’s fingers were digging into his forearm. He laid his hand over hers and saw the Trickster’s eyebrows soar suggestively. He ignored the look and said, “You’re right. I am too free with my tongue. I never used to be. Maybe it’s just that we’ve come a long way and we’re no closer to our goal than when we started.” The Trickster leaned forward, his face intent. “And I didn’t mean to say all that either. So I guess you have charmed me, after all. Or else I don’t give a damn anymore.”

“Well, I do consider myself charming.” The Trickster flashed that tongue-lolling grin. “But I haven’t cast a spell over you. Any more than you’ve ceased caring about the outcome of your little quest.”

Griane stepped close enough to the Trickster to start Darak’s heart thudding again. “Will you help us, Lord Fellgair?”

“Griane.” Darak hoped she could hear the warning in his voice. He had not asked for the gift of fire, but he had accepted it—and the Trickster had promptly aided the wolf. Who knew what price he would exact now?

The Trickster tapped his lips with one elegantly lethal claw. Griane knelt. “Please.” Somehow, she made the word sound more like a command than a plea. Darak stared at the stiff shoulders, the straight back. Even while he shook his head, he found himself admiring her courage.

They remained there, Griane on her knees, the Trickster on his log, staring into each other’s eyes for so long that Darak feared she had been bespelled. Then the Trickster stretched out his hand. He let his palm rest against her hair, then drew his knuckles slowly down her cheek.

“What will you offer in return for my help?”

Before Darak could warn her to make no bargains, Griane leaned forward and pressed her lips against the Trickster’s mouth.

Fellgair’s eyes closed. He smiled, his lips still touching hers. Then he drew back to study Griane’s face. “I have stolen my share of kisses from mortal women. You are the first to offer one freely.”

He rose, extending a graceful hand to help Griane to her feet. Then he held out the other. After a moment’s hesitation, Darak stepped forward. He caught his breath as the Trickster’s peculiar scent hit him, the foxy reek at odds with the sweet fragrance of honeysuckle. With some trepidation, he took the proffered hand. The palm was spongy but rough, like a dog’s pads.

To his surprise, Fellgair simply placed Griane’s hand in his. The golden eyes regarded him gravely. “You will find what you are seeking in Chaos.”

The words hit him like a physical blow. “Tinnean is in Chaos?”

“And the Oak-Lord? Is he with Tinnean?”

For one moment, the Trickster’s ruddy pelt gleamed among the gray tree trunks. Then there was only everyday sunlight, and everyday shadows, and Griane’s hand cold in his.

F
ROM HIS HIDING PLACE in the thicket, Morgath watched the two figures walk upstream, the Hunter staggering a little under the weight of the doe. Saliva oozed from his jaws, the hunger pangs fiercer than the throbbing wound in his side.

Twice now, the Hunter had thwarted him. He would pay for that. The wound hindered his hunting. It had taken him five days to find their lair. Ever since, he had kept watch, but until today, he’d seen only the Hunter. A low whine escaped him at the thought that the Betrayer might have perished, although he had seen no body, nor the rock pile that marked the grave of a dead pack member.

Cairn.

He repeated the name in his mind. Words were power. Words were his connection to his true self. Lately, when he lost himself in the hunt or ripped open the belly of a hare, it seemed that he had always been a wolf, had always seen the world through these eyes, snuffed it with this nose. Unless he exerted his control, nothing would remain of the man he had been, not even his hatred. Then he would wander the First Forest, a stranger to himself.

He whined softly. He’d been alone so long, while the Hunter had his pack. Even now, the little female trotted obediently beside him, glancing up occasionally to expose her throat to him. Morgath bellied forward, hindquarters twitching in the desire to attack. The Hunter would have to drop the doe before he could use his weapons. He measured the distance. Too far to be certain. No cover to protect him. He could not risk it, no matter how much he longed for the Hunter’s blood.

He whined again. The Betrayer was his primary quarry. Sometimes he forgot that was why he had come so far—to send his spirit to Chaos and feast on his flesh. He’d rip open that soft belly as easily as gutting a hare. He’d lap up the hot, salty blood. The liver, he would save for later, tender though it was. He’d have the heart first. Tear it out, just as the old man had torn his from his body. Tear it out and devour it.

He watched the Hunter struggle up the embankment. The female turned and seized his arm. When she paused to push the Hunter’s hair off his face, longing filled him, more intense than the desire to hunt, to kill, to destroy.

And then he knew what he wanted. Not merely to kill the Betrayer, but to walk toward him on two legs. To speak aloud the words that would remind him of his perfidy and condemn him to Chaos. To watch the old man kneel at his feet and call him master, just as he used to.

As they disappeared into the cave, Morgath rose and stretched. Night was approaching. The time for hunting. Later, when his belly was full, he could decide which of their strong, young bodies he would make his own.

The faces of the others told Cuillon it was a bad thing for the Oak to be in the place they called Chaos. Darak’s silence told him even more; he would not speak the name aloud, even when he interrupted Griane’s telling to question Struath.

“Can you penetrate it with your Sight?” Darak asked.

“Nay.”

“What about the portals? Can you sense them before they open?”

“Nay.”

“Can you open one yourself?”

“Nay!”

The two glared at each other. Then Darak rose without a word to leave the cave. Yeorna seized Griane’s arm as she started after him. “Give him time.” His belly gave one of its odd little flutters as she sank back down.

“Please,” he said. They all started at the sound of his voice. “Why is Chaos a bad place?”

“It is not bad,” Struath said. “Not in and of itself. But it is a place of illusion, where existence is ever-changing.”

“Like the seasons?”

“Imagine if autumn followed winter,” Yeorna said, “and then came winter again with no spring or summer.”

“Oh.”

Struath stared into space, stroking the underside of his chin. Griane squirmed. The Holly-Lord resisted the urge to do the same. Struath’s stories were interesting, but sometimes he preferred Darak’s straightforward answers. His impatience troubled him, further proof of the changes his spirit was undergoing.

Struath placed his hands on his knees. “In the beginning, before gods or men existed, before there was sun or moon, earth or sea, there was Chaos. Out of Chaos, rose the Maker and the Unmaker. The Unmaker ruled Chaos, delighting in his realm, but the Maker longed for order. She took fire and shaped Bel, the Sun Lord, and Gheala, the Moon Lady. She created Nul, the Keeper of Lightning, and all the stars in the night sky. Her breath became the four winds and her voice became Nul’s brother, Taran the Thunderer. One star, smaller than the others, fell from the sky. The Maker wept, and her tears created the waters of the world and the gods of sea and lake and river. Into the waters, the star fell and cooled and became earth. And here, the Maker placed the World Tree.”

“My Tree?”

“Nay, Holly-Lord. The tree that connects the Upper World of the gods to the Middle World—”

“That’s the First Forest and our world,” Griane added.

“ … to the Lower World where the Forever Isles float.”

He tried to remember if he had ever felt this World Tree when his spirit had lived in the Holly. His roots had spread deep and far; he had touched many other trees. Perhaps, they had all been touching this World Tree, which had shared the energy of one among all.

“So the Maker planted the World Tree—”

“Nay, Holly-Lord. First, the Maker created the silver branches.”

“The branches came first?”

“They are the dwelling place of the gods, Holly-Lord. Gods came into being before men.”

“But how can the tree stand without roots?”

“The World Tree is not an ordinary tree.”

“It does not make sense.” Surely, if the Maker valued order as much as Struath believed, she would have planted the roots firmly in the earth.

“Some things must be taken on faith.”

He absorbed this in silence. Perhaps faith was something that allowed men to believe things that made no sense.

“Shall I continue?”

“Please, Struath.”

“The Lord of Chaos was jealous of the gods because they were immortal, just as he was. And so the Unmaker spilled his seed upon the emerging trunk of the Tree.”

Cuillon opened his mouth to ask about this, but closed it when he saw Struath frown. To himself, he imagined a pile of sunflower seeds atop a fallen log.

“By spilling his seed on the trunk of the World Tree, the Unmaker ensured that each drop of life would contain a drop of death.”

He amended the previous image to one of salmon spawning in a river. As an afterthought, he added a large tree growing out of the water. Neither image seemed right.

“Once death entered the Middle World, the Maker could not remove it. But she gave her youngest children—men—a great gift to compensate them for their short lives.”

Cuillon waited patiently until he realized that this time, Struath wanted him to ask a question. “What was the gift, Struath?”

When Struath smiled, he knew he had guessed correctly. “By the time the roots of the World Tree appeared, the Maker’s tears had washed away the Unmaker’s seed. There in the roots, she created the Forever Isles, where men and women could await rebirth after death came for them.” Struath sighed. “They are a place of great beauty.”

“You have been there?”

“When I fly with my spirit guide.”

“But you cannot fly into Chaos?”

Struath’s lips pressed into a tight line. Fear and doubt returned to their faces. The fluttering in his belly solidified into an icicle. He had stolen the comfort the story had given them, just as he had stolen Griane’s happiness when he had spoken against the name she had chosen.

“Perhaps …”

The hope on their faces hurt more than the fear. “I was thinking of how the rowan pulled up her roots and walked out of the First Forest.”

Hope gave way to confusion. He spoke more quickly. “If the rowan could do that, when no tree had done such a thing before, then we can go to Chaos and bring back the Oak and Tinnean.”

They smiled. The icicle inside his belly melted. The talk turned to ways of finding a portal, of the preparations they must make. He stared into the fire, lips pressed together to keep other questions from escaping. He was glad he had given them back the comfort he had stolen. Gladder still that they had believed the small lie.

Darak set out at first light. If Struath could not open a portal, Fellgair could. Whatever the price the Trickster demanded, he would pay it. When he heard the crunch of footsteps on pebbles, he spun around, ready to order Griane back into the cave. The words died when he saw Struath.