Heartwood (Tricksters Game) (46 page)

Morgath’s satisfaction oozed through him.
You cannot free Tinnean. It’s too late for him. And now, the Tree will destroy you as well.

“Nay.”

You think you’re being noble, don’t you? Nobility didn’t put you on that tree. Guilt did.

“Stop.”

Only when you die. Would you like that? The Tree can’t free you, Darak, but I can. I could let your spirit fly to the Forever Isles.

Even as he denied it, the desire to escape, to be free surged through him.

Come to me, Darak.

The voice beckoned, sweeter than any lover’s.

You want to. I can sense your desire. I can feel the blood pumping through your wreck of a body at the mere thought of it. Come to me, Darak. Leave the Tree and come to me.

The man on the tree gasped. The man in the Tree shuddered as his spirit wavered, yearning to escape, hungering even more for the kill, even if it meant destroying himself, even if it meant destroying Tinnean. He could taste the kill, sweeter than the lover’s voice, sweeter than anything he had ever known or would ever know in this life or the next.

In the end, pride held him back. He refused to give Morgath the satisfaction of rising to the bait. He choked down his rage and his desire and willed the bloodlust to subside.

His father was right. Control was the greatest strength. His ability to control pain and fear. To banish weakness when it threatened to unman him. To master the dangerous world of Chaos. To withstand Morgath. To challenge anyone who opposed him.

To dominate everyone who had ever loved him.

The man on the tree breathed the words with his spirit-self. “Oh, gods …”

His greatest strength and his greatest weakness. For when he couldn’t bend them to his will, he either walked away, as he had done so many times with Maili, or drove them away, as he had driven Tinnean away at Midwinter.

All his life, fear had been the enemy. Fear that, if he could not match his father’s accomplishments, he would be less of a man. Fear that, if Tinnean left, he would be alone. Fear that, if he lost control, if he let himself go, all that he was—all that he imagined himself to be—would simply shatter, leaving nothing.

All the times he believed he was protecting his folk, he had only been protecting himself.

Let it go, Darak.

Tinnean’s voice, drowned out by Morgath’s laughter.

The man on the tree trembled as if his body knew the secret and was determined to expose it to the world.

Let it go.

Pain welled up from his stomach, where a remorseless fist pummeled him. Pain rushed into his chest, leaving him gasping. Pain seized his throat with greedy fingers and choked him.

Darak. Please. Let it go.

The man in the Tree shuddered with the effort of preserving his spirit. The man on the tree gasped and opened his eyes. There were two Morgaths now, one still seated on the ground, smiling in his trance, another standing behind him. Or was that Yeorna raising her arms? It must be, for there was Struath, standing beside his father. His pack. All of them watching him and waiting.

He was so afraid.

His father reached for his body. His brother reached for his spirit.

It might only have been the breeze whispering against his cheek, or it might have been his father’s hand. When he felt that gentle touch, something inside of him shattered as he’d always known it would. When it did, the energy flowed through him, and with it, the song of the World Tree. And he understood, finally, that it was not trying to steal his spirit or to absorb him. The Tree simply was. The Tree lived. The Tree sang. No man could hear all the threads of the song, or encompass all of the energy, but each man could share it, and carry a small part of that power with him always.

The song of the Tree penetrated skin and bone and blood and breath, calming the terror. The energy of the Oak and Tinnean cradled his spirit, easing it back into his body. Darak’s spirit surrendered to their power, even as his body surrendered to the sobs. The tears he’d never been able to weep poured down his face, fiercer than the blazing heat that scorched his chest. The sobs shook him, harder than the spasm that racked his spirit as Morgath wrenched free of him.

The twisted oak shuddered. His arms dropped to his sides. Fire raged through them as feeling returned. At his back, though, the thorns seemed to have abandoned their ceaseless rending of flesh, for he felt only warm air. Before he could make sense of it, his knees bumped against hard-packed dirt. He fell forward, screaming when his right hand exploded in agony.

“Strike now, son.”

He raised his head. Strands of colored light—blue, green, red, and silver—stretched from Struath’s upraised hands, weaving a web of protection around him. Yeorna loomed over Morgath, surrounding him with another web. Morgath’s face twisted into a grimace. Yeorna swayed, her form melting into the strands of light, only to reassert itself at Struath’s shouted command.

“Darak! Use the dagger!”

He looked around. Even when he saw the bloodstained blade protruding from his palm, he struggled to comprehend his father’s words. He reached for the hilt. His fingers obeyed unwillingly, as if, like Cuillon’s, they had been transformed into wood. He forced them to close around the coiled sinew. Shimmering black dots danced before his eyes, obscuring Struath’s web. He bit down hard on his lip to drive them back. His father was shouting something. The urgency in his voice made Darak tug at the hilt. His fingers slipped. Blood filled his mouth, warm and salty. This is what Morgath had tasted. His blood. His flesh.

He grasped the hilt again. The scream tore his throat. When the black dots receded, he found himself on his elbows, the dagger still embedded in his hand. The greedy earth sucked up the fresh blood; like Morgath, it could not get enough of him.

Yeorna was fading, dissolving before his eyes and with her, the pretty web of colors. He crawled forward on his elbows and knees. The pouch thumped against his chest like a heartbeat. The black dots crowded his vision. He shook his head, blinking, as Yeorna disappeared. Only Morgath’s face remained, growing ever smaller, a tiny white oval just beyond Struath’s web of light and color.

The web shuddered. He glanced up. His father’s mouth moved, but he couldn’t make out the words. Struath’s long braids swirled around his head as wildly as the mist claiming his form. His blue eye blazed. Darak flinched when that piercing gaze found him. He wanted to tell Struath that he had found his vision mate again, that he finally understood the wolf’s message. Perhaps Struath understood for his sudden smile was as warm and proud as the day the shaman had welcomed him home from his vision quest.

A shadow crossed Struath’s face. Darak squinted skyward, but all he could make out was a dark cloud descending. A gust of warm air buffeted him. Huge wings, black and iridescent, enfolded Struath. Just before they both vanished, Darak heard a raven’s croak and the shaman’s joyful laughter.

Morgath moaned and toppled over.

“Now, son. Strike now.”

Darak flung himself forward, pinning Morgath to the ground. Nearly blinded by his failing senses, he heaved himself up. The world receded to the blue of Morgath’s eyes, to the pressure building inside his temples as his enemy sought to invade him again.

Morgath’s mouth opened. He slapped his hand over it. The twin pools of blue widened. Darak felt himself falling into them, just as he had fallen into Fellgair’s. The shaman’s scream seared his left hand. His right felt as heavy as stone as he lifted it. Morgath writhed beneath him, hips bucking in a grotesque parody of the act of love. A tear oozed from his left eye. Yeorna’s eye, the same soft blue of the sky after a spring storm. It pleaded with him to yield to the pressure in his head, to let go of his ruined body and fly away like Struath. With the last of his strength, Darak brought his hand down, plunging the dagger’s blade into that beautiful blue eye.

C
UILLON HAD LOST TRACK of the days. It seemed they had always been stumbling through the forest, but Griane assured him it was only half a moon. Her face was as thin as a fox’s now, cheekbones standing out like ridges beneath huge, shadowed eyes. Sometimes, when she pressed her magic plants against his limbs, her hands trembled just a little and her determined smile slipped, but most of the time, she yipped at him as insistently as ever.

Cold no longer bothered him, but he was grateful for the feel of her body pressed against his in the night, the strength of her arms twining around him like ivy around oak. When the dreams disturbed his sleep, her whispers comforted him. When the weight of the pouch around his neck seemed too heavy to bear, the touch of her hand lightened the burden.

Other men had made sacrifices for him, some pouring water upon his roots, some offering the flesh of animals. Only when he became a man did he understand how great a sacrifice it was to give up the food that sustained them. Just as he understood now that the only sacrifice great enough to return the Oak to the world was a gift of life. Struath and Yeorna had sacrificed theirs. Surely, Darak’s was not required as well.

He leaned against the trunk of a towering ash. Darak was strong, Griane told him. He would find a way out of Chaos. He would probably be waiting for them in the grove, wondering what had taken them so long. Each time she said this, he nodded, pretending he did not notice the way her voice shook when she said Darak’s name.

Griane glanced back, her face creasing in a frown. “Are you all right? Do your hands hurt?”

His fingers had lost all feeling, but it would only frighten her if she knew. So he said, “I am fine, Griane.”

Her eyes narrowed. She always knew when he told a small lie. He tried again. “I was thinking.”

“About what?”

“Hot apple cider.”

That surprised a laugh out of her. The echo of it settled in his belly, as delicious as the cider. “Hot apple cider has everything. You can feel the warmth sliding into your belly. You can chew the apple skin. And the smell …” Cuillon breathed deeply. “Smell is still very strong with me. I will miss that.”

A spasm of pain twisted Griane’s face. He tried to smile, but his mouth refused to turn up. “Do you think I have changed too much? Will the Holly still know me?”

Griane cupped his cheeks with mittened hands. “The Holly will always know you.” Her face crumpled, then smoothed itself out again. “Come on. We’re almost there. Then you’ll see for yourself.”

She adjusted her pack, shifting Darak’s great bow to the other side so she could link her arm through his. They were close now. He could tell from the way the Watchers flitted anxiously among the giant trees. His joy was leavened by the knowledge that to regain his Tree, he must lose Griane and Darak. He had known that since the beginning, but he had never imagined how much they would come to mean to him and how much the prospect of losing them would hurt.

As the day waned, they quickened their pace, both of them eager to reach the grove before dark. He strained to see the Tree, but the trunks of lesser trees hid it from view. Griane’s excited shout sent his heart tattoo thumping as wildly as it had when Struath had led him back to his grove so many days ago. He darted between rowan and birch and raced across the snow-dusted earth to his Tree.

He had forgotten how huge it was, how small he felt standing before it. The sweeping boughs of his Holly cast a dark shadow over the grove, shutting out what little light still filtered through the naked branches of the other trees. The scar on the Tree’s trunk looked as black as the path to Chaos.

Even if he could not feel his leaves, he needed to touch them, to feel the energy of his Holly flowing through him again. Tenderly, he cupped his fingers around one leaf.

It cracked.

He stared down at the shattered pieces. The fragments drifted through his fingers. It was only one leaf. He had lost whole limbs in the battle with the Oak. He fumbled along the low-hanging branch. Twigs snapped. Leaves crumbled into dust. Something fell into his hand. He bent close, squinting in the failing light.

A berry. A small, shriveled berry, its bright red faded to the color of dried blood.

He pushed the branch aside and plunged his arms deeper. The boy’s hands and feet had changed. So might his outermost branches. Inside, closer to the trunk, all would be well. A dry sob escaped him as branches broke before his questing hands. He fought his way through the sundered limbs, desperately searching for some sign of life. The Holly tore at his tunic, his breeches, his face, but he was mindless with fear now, screaming out his denial.

Griane seized him. He fought as if she were the foe. Even when she captured his flailing hands, he kept struggling until his legs gave out and his voice died and he slid to the ground. Griane held him, stroking his hair with her gentle hands. He could only sit there, as empty and dead as his Holly.