Heartwood (Tricksters Game) (45 page)

“Merciful gods,” Yeorna whispered. “Is he alive?” Before Struath could answer, he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. He rose to flee, then sank back into a crouch.

Reinek squatted down beside him, nodding politely to Yeorna. To judge from his calm demeanor, it might have been days since their last meeting instead of years. He could not imagine why Reinek was in Chaos, but if his spirit could remain unchanged after all these years, perhaps the Oak and Tinnean were safe.

There were so many questions he wished to ask, so much he could learn from Reinek, but there was no time now. He gestured helplessly at the tree. “What happened?”

“He offered himself to free the Holly-Lord.”

Terror felt different in spirit-form. Not the clenching of gut or the racing of heart. Here the senses dimmed instead of intensified, as if you were smothering in a roiling mass of dirty wool. Through it, Struath heard Reinek’s voice, low and urgent. “The Holly-Lord is safe. He is back in the First Forest. Calm yourself, Struath. Breathe.”

The apprentice’s lessons, this time taught by a dead hunter. Darak would enjoy that irony.

“Your spirit catcher,” Reinek said. “He brought it to Darak.”

Struath gazed at the bloody body hanging on the tree. “He failed.”

“Aye. Will you?”

Years in Chaos had not eased Reinek’s bluntness. “I don’t know. While Morgath is there, I dare not try.”

“Can you destroy Morgath?”

When a shaman walked between the worlds, he was vulnerable, unaware of the sights and sounds of the ordinary world. Still, Struath hesitated.

“Well?”

“I don’t know, Reinek. When I tried to summon the power, I nearly destroyed myself.”

“We must do something,” Reinek said. “Darak feels … far away. I fear … I think we are losing him.”

Yeorna’s whispered prayer broke off. “You don’t think … could Morgath have taken him?”

“What?” Reinek’s voice cracked.

“He has not cast Darak’s spirit out,” Struath said quickly. “If he had, your body would be dead. But Morgath has the power to remain in one body while possessing another.”

They stared in silence at the frozen tableau in the center of the glade. Finally, Struath said, “I cannot attack Morgath while he shares such a deep connection with Darak.”

“You must risk it.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“My son is dying.” Reinek’s form blurred, then reasserted itself. “There must be a way.”

Struath frowned, considering. “The moment of greatest vulnerability comes at the point of disconnection.”

“Speak plain, Struath.”

He almost smiled. He had forgotten how alike father and son were. “Right now, Morgath’s spirit is tethered to two bodies. When he leaves Darak, there will be a moment—a few heartbeats—when his spirit is sustained only by the slender connection he maintains to Yeorna’s body. If I sever it, Morgath’s spirit will be lost.” Reinek’s eyes gleamed and Struath held up a cautioning hand. “I have never done this, Reinek. Sever the connection too late and Morgath will be safe in Yeorna’s body. Sever it too soon and he’ll root himself in Darak’s.”

“What if we warded both bodies?” Yeorna asked. “That would keep Darak safe and hinder Morgath’s return to mine.”

“It might work. Your body would be vulnerable of course, but …” Struath hesitated. “Yeorna, you ward Darak. I will—”

“Nay, Tree-Father. You must ward Darak.”

If he could have wept, her sad smile would have brought him to tears. They both knew she was not powerful enough to resist Morgath for long. By choosing to ward her own body, she would almost certainly lose it forever.

“As you wish, Grain-Mother.”

“A bird. A beast,” Reinek said. “He’s taken them before.”

“I cannot protect against that. But seizing another body is draining. Even if Morgath succeeds, we will have time to free Darak and—gods willing, the Oak and Tinnean.”

Yeorna nodded. After a moment, Reinek did, too.

“I will make my way behind the tree. Yeorna, position yourself near Morgath. Watch him carefully. You’ll see him gasp, shiver, blink. Some sign that will warn you he is breaking the trance. We must erect the wards immediately. Reinek—”

“I will stand with my son.”

As one, their gazes returned to the man on the tree.

D
ARAK’S PACE QUICKENED as he recognized the familiar landmarks: the little stream where he could always fill his waterskin, the stand of birches where he had brought down the stag, the glade of the heart-oak. He was going home. The ever-present heartbeat seemed to share his excitement, its tattoo quickening. Finally, he had found the path. Tinnean would be waiting for him at the end of it.

He raced along the trail, past the clearing where the young boar had charged him, past the little thicket where Tinnean had snared his first rabbit, past the two pines where the Holly-Lord had broken away and raced into the night. Years ago, it seemed.

He burst out of the forest, half-expecting to see his brother running across the stubbled fields as Cuillon had the afternoon he had escaped from Griane. He looked around, his eagerness ebbing as his senses registered the emptiness. No coracles on the lake. No smoke from the huts. Not even a bird roosting in the trees. The branches moved wildly, but they were as silent as the wind that shook them.

The she-wolf’s low whine shattered the appalling silence. His hand tightened convulsively around his bag of charms as he discovered the sky behind him seething with clouds the mottled purple of a fresh bruise. They roiled over the treetops as if devouring the forest. White branches of lightning split the sky. Thunder growled like a giant beast and the ground shook, echoing its malevolence.

His vision mate raised her head, scenting the air. “Go, Little Brother.” When he hesitated, she growled. “Go. Now.”

“But what about you?”

“I will hunt Morgath.”

“It’s not good to hunt alone.” Must he lose her so soon after finding her again?

“Sometimes the pack splits up. Some drive the prey forward while the rest wait to make the kill.”

He resisted the urge to beg her to stay. Perhaps she understood, for she said, “We are pack, Little Brother. I am always with you. And you are always with me.” She bared her teeth. “Good hunting.”

Darak raised his hand in salute. She yipped once and bolted back into the trees, the invading darkness enveloping forest and animal.

He heard the unseen sound of rending wood and the crash of toppling trees. Fallen leaves shivered and shifted as if a host of voles burrowed under them. The burrows collapsed into jagged fissures that devoured their shroud of leaves as they snaked out of the forest. A birch shuddered. Clods of dirt erupted as its roots tore free from the earth, leaving behind a gaping black hole. It was as if the forest were disintegrating. Unless he could reach Tinnean and the Oak, he would disappear with it.

Wind lashed him as he ran. Behind him, he heard the groan of uprooted trees, the crack of shattering limbs. He dared a quick look over his shoulder and saw branches hurtling down, only to vanish before they hit the ground.

He raced toward the stream. If the maelstrom was following him, he would not lead it to the village. The big willow tilted toward him as he skidded into the water. By the time he had scrambled across the ice-slick stones, the tree had disappeared.

Running, falling, he scrambled up the slope toward the lone oak. The ground convulsed and split open. His fingertips brushed bark as he fell. Damning his maimed hands, he clawed at the dirt, but he only sank deeper into the earth. Flailing for a foothold, he dug his fingers in again. He would not die. Not now.

The wind battered him, howling with Morgath’s mocking laughter. The heartbeat pounded like a drum, no longer all around him, but beckoning from the bowels of the earth. He couldn’t follow it there. He would be lost, and with him, Tinnean and the Oak.

Naked tree roots loomed above him. Dirt poured down, choking him. Blind, he reached up. His fingers closed around the oak’s roots. With the last of his strength, he hauled himself up.

The roots shattered. He fell into the void, screaming Tinnean’s name. Morgath’s laughter echoed around him. The heartbeat beckoned him deeper. Helplessly, he plummeted into darkness blacker than any night, into cold, deep and enduring as death, and finally, into light.

The heartbeat pulsed once and his descent slowed. One moment he was drifting downward and the next he was standing in what appeared to be a cavern. The light was everywhere—in the walls encircling him, in the roof above him, in the ground beneath his feet. They sparkled like the crystal spirit catcher, so blindingly brilliant it took him a moment to make out the tree. Its trunk rose slender and straight, its pale bark smoother than any ash. Its branches brushed the walls of the cavern. The seven-lobed leaves were as blue as flowering speedwell.

The strange tree trembled as another sprouted. They were at once one tree and two, their forms melding into each other, yet clearly defined. The new tree grew proud and strong, sheltering its smaller brother with its wide-spreading branches. The Oak, he realized. The Oak as it once was. The Oak as it might be again.

The heartbeat filled the cavern, pulsing with renewed energy, with the revitalized power of a healed world, irresistible and beautiful and right. He crawled forward and stretched out his hand, yearning to be part of that world. If he could touch it, just for a moment, he would be healed as well.

You think you can escape me?

Darak leaped up, casting a wild glance around him. He was alone in the cavern, but even here, Morgath’s voice pursued him.

There is no place you can go. No place so hidden that I cannot follow. I am part of you.

“Nay.”

We are all part of you.

Wind buffeted him, howling with the voices of unquiet spirits.

Why did you hurt me, Darak?

Why did you hate me, son?

Why did you refuse to give me your blessing?
“Tinnean! Where are you?”

The voices mocked him.

Lost. Forever.

“You are not real.”

Above the laughter, he heard Morgath’s voice.
They are all real, Darak. And they are all doomed. Like you.

The wind engulfed him, driving him backward toward the two trees. Faces loomed before him. Maili with her accusing eyes. His father, stern and disapproving. And Tinnean, so sad and hopeless. Tearing him apart with their eyes, consigning him to an eternity of Chaos with their words.

Only the heartbeat offered hope, pounding louder than ever. As if in answer, the howling crescendoed. He staggered back, thrusting out one hand to steady himself. He had only a moment to register the supple texture of the bark before the gale struck him, as powerful as Morgath’s destroying energy, as dizzying as Fellgair’s vision. And then the heartbeat washed over him and into him, carrying him out of the vortex into calm.

He hung on the tree of Chaos, staring down at Morgath sitting cross-legged before him, eyes wide and unseeing. Arms leached into branches, chest seeped into trunk, toes curled into roots. He was flesh and wood, blood and sap. He was Darak and he was tree.

He floated in the tree of the cavern, unable to move, unable to breathe, yet completely aware, completely alive. He was in the earth and of the earth, rooted to it and looking down upon it at the same time.

The steady vibration rose up through him, patient as time, slow as sap rising, the energy of the world that moved with the unhurried patience of the ages. It flowed through the body on the tree, soothing the wounds, stilling the trembling muscles. It flowed through the spirit in the cavern, easing the fear, washing away doubt.

The Oak sang. Flesh and spirit recognized the song, for it had echoed in the being of every creature since the world first’s dawning. The song of the World Tree, older than time, fresh as a new day.

Heat and cold, it sang, wind and ice. And with the song, he knew them. Rain, he knew, and lightning. Raven croak and wolf howl. Time he knew as well, but it was the slow unfolding of ages, not the changing of seasons, the birthing and dying of worlds, not people. Time was the gods who dwelled among his silver branches and the sunlit Forever Isles that floated in his roots. Time was the endless cycle of energy, flowing up into his trunk and out through his limbs to sink down to his roots again.

He was Darak and Tree. Mortal man and ancient being. A single mind and the consciousness of the world.

The realization terrified him. It was too much for any man to grasp. He would shatter if he tried, his spirit lost forever. Or worse, the part of him that was Darak would simply be absorbed. He could imagine the hopeless, helpless madness of watching himself fade, observing the last spark that had once been Darak flicker and die.

Somewhere in the engulfing terror, he found a tiny point of calm. Tinnean, small but real in the immensity of the World Tree. Tinnean, assuring him without words that he could free them.

He had tried and failed with the spirit catcher. He had surrendered himself to Morgath, enduring the mutilation of his body and the invasion of his mind. He had survived the obstacles of his spirit-journey to reach this place, but even now, with the limitless knowledge that the Tree offered, he didn’t understand how to free Tinnean and the Oak.