Wandering Lark (36 page)

But he could not kill her. She took care of him, healed him with her special herbs and foreign ways. He came to learn she was not a child, but a woman grown. He fell in love with her, took her as his wife and brought her back to his land.

Still, there were those who looked at her and knew that she was not Synalian in blood. He refused to listen when his family said that she should be sent away, that if the temples learned of her, he would not stand a chance. She would be burned, and he along with her.

He bought out his commission and took work as a mercenary after that. He traveled along, taking Islonia with him. When she bore him his first and only child, he was so pleased.

But then, when Talena was just a child, her father had gone to talk to a merchant about work. She and her mother were alone in the cottage when the men in black leather armor came.

Talena did not know at the time that they were Temple Bounty Hunters. She thought they were some of the monsters her father had described seeing in his travels. Her mother pushed her into a small closet, told her to be quiet, and locked the door. From that dark, close place, Talena listened to her mother’s cries for mercy and the laughter of the men. The sounds faded as her mother was dragged from the cottage by force.

She never saw her mother again. Her father had returned late that night to a cold cottage and a child sobbing in the dark of a closet. She could not tell him anything. What she did know was that her father had taken her away after that. He never spoke of her mother again. He became dark and brooding in temperament. For Talena, life became roads and rambles and brawls and learning the way of the sword. Then her father took her back to the family farm to stay with her cousin’s kin, and went off, never to return.

She later learned that he had gone to the Temple of the Triad and tried to kill one of the patriarchs who were responsible for ordering the death of his beloved Islonia. But his failure was also his death.

And then the Temple elders came and took Desura because she said she could hear the giant’s heart. Talena heard it too, but she never told anyone because it scared her to know that she might be what her mother was.

Now, here on this plain where the stones were shaped like melted men and horses and other beasts, she could only shiver.

Because she was hearing the heart of the giant as though she had her ear to the ground. She was hearing the snarl of voices in the air. The death screams of horses on a battlefield. The “qwork” of ravens as they feasted, and all of it sounded as though it were an echo from the past.

She wondered if the bard could hear what she was hearing. Could he not feel the strange touch of the spirits? Or was he just better able to ignore it because he was a heretic himself? For all she knew, he would be able to communicate with these spirits. Maybe turn them against her. She reached up and touched her throat. Was that where those bruises came from? Had he tried to harm her in some fashion? If so, why had he not killed her?

Maybe he had the power to make her forget? She had heard the Temple Patriarchs speaking of this once, that some heretics had the power to cloud the mind.

Then why has he not tried to rid himself of my company before now?
He had certainly had enough opportunity.

Stop thinking like a child,
she scolded herself. She had a mission. To find the White One, to kill the dragon, and as a reward, they would make her one of their trusted Bounty Hunters.

And once she had that position, she could work to avenge herself on those who had stolen her mother’s life and her father’s as well.

Talena took a deep breath. She wanted to call out to him, to tell him her true reason for being here. But she did not dare. Not now. Not realizing that to do so would reveal that she was descended from heretics herself and jeopardize her one chance to pay the temple back for all the ills it had wrought on her life.

If anyone were to find out, it would mean her death for certain.

Etienne’s cousins were herbalists
who lived high up in the willow’s branches. Many members of her family had taken on some form of healing arts as a profession. Their cottage was easy to spot among the branches for the front platform was like a balcony, and hanging along the railing and from the ceiling over it were bundles of drying herbs.

She made Shona and Wendon wait in the shadows where the limbs branched as she carefully walked along the limb and up the wooden stairs to the front. All the while, she kept an eye out for Bran. So far, there was no sign of him. But Etienne was not ready to trust him to be at the inn for long. Knowing the odious innkeeper who had taken gold to reveal her presence there, he was probably telling Bran that some hell-spawn woman had threatened him with warts and weasels. She wished she had the gall to place such a curse as she had spat on him for real, but cursing mortalborn was limited to threats instead of actual incantations. Her vows to the Council of Mageborn forbade her from actually casting spells.

She made the top stair when the door opened and a thin stick of an older woman came out shaking her head. “If I have told him once, I have told him a thousand times to leave the cat alone…” She stopped, her eyes widening. “Etienne?” she whispered. “Is that you, child?”

“Aunt Navareen,” Etienne said and curtsied respectfully. “You honor me by remembering me after so long.”

“Oh, my sweet niece, how can I forget the most beautiful daughter my rogue of a brother sired?”

Etienne smiled. “I have come to ask a favor. I and two companions are in need of a place to hide at least for the night.”

“Hide?” Navareen looked over Etienne’s shoulder. “Companions? Have you been chewing
ditherweed,
my dear?”

Etienne gestured towards the shadows back where the limbs of the great tree split. Wendon and Shona hurried out, crossing the small expanse of the limb on which this cottage sat. Wendon looked down and frowned at the distance to the ground as he grabbed the railing. Shona moved gracefully ahead of him as though nothing was the matter.

“It sways more up here,” she heard Wendon whisper to Shona’s back.

“So I’ve noticed,” Shona said.

They reached the platform without incident. Wendon was looking a little green.

“May I introduce my apprentice, Shona Ni’Warden, and our traveling companion, Wendon Stanewold,” Etienne said.

Aunt Navareen looked from one to the other, and then back to Eithne. “From who are the three of you hiding?” she asked plainly.

“A mageborn,” Etienne said.

“One of your own kind? Why?”

“It’s a very long story, Aunt Navareen, and I would feel much better telling you over a cup of your blackberry sage tea.” Etienne looked hopeful that they would not stand out here much longer. It was a bit windy, and autumn’s chill was starting to nip at her. She should have put on her cloak, but it was tucked into her satchel. In her haste to get out of the inn, she had neglected to do more than stuff it there.

“Very well,” Navareen said. “But first, assure me that whatever you have done is not going to shame your family name.”

Etienne shook her head. “That will depend,” she said, “on whether or not I am captured and returned to Dun Gealach before I find Fenelon Greenfyn. And know this, I did what I believed was right.”

Aunt Navareen nodded slowly. “Very well. Come into my house and be welcome, children.”

She stepped back and opened the door for them. Etienne motioned for the others to go first. Wendon seemed particularly eager to get indoors now. As he passed Aunt Navareen, she stopped him.

“Feeling sickly?” she asked.

“A bit, ma’am,” he admitted.

She nodded. “I know just the thing to settle your stomach then. Ground walkers always have this problem when they first come into high branches.”

Navareen gestured for him to go on, and he did. She looked at Etienne and smiled. “He seems a nice sturdy young man.”

“He is proving his worth, I can assure you,” Etienne said. She stepped in behind Wendon.

The room inside was warm, and there was a comforting creak of great strong wood swaying gently in the high winds. Aunt Navareen herded them all to chairs. Over in one corner sat a woman Etienne did not recognize. She was bouncing a boy of three on her knee, and he looked none too happy as he leaned against her.

“I’ll be just a moment,” Aunt Navareen said as she crossed over to the woman and offered her a small bit of herb. “Now, soak this in tepid water for about ten minutes then clean the wounds with it. And tell him that next time he should think twice before he pulls kitty’s tail.”

The woman nodded, accepting the bit of herb, tucking it into a belt pouch and drawing out a coin. She handed Aunt Navareen a copper sgillinn, hoisted the lad on her hip and left in silence. Aunt Navareen closed the door and turned to her guests.

“Where is Uncle Strauss?” Etienne asked.

“Down in the roots sharing a keg of mush moss.”

“I didn’t think mush moss grew this time of the year,” Etienne said.

“Uh…what is mush moss?” Wendon asked.

“A fungus,” Etienne said. “It’s very spongy and grows around the roots of willows in the spring and early summer. It’s brewed to make a very strong medicinal drink.”

“Oh, you’re being too nice, Etienne,” Aunt Navareen said. “It’s used to brew strong ale that will intoxicate a man with one mouthful. My Strauss makes the best mush moss beer for ten tree leagues.”

Shona and Wendon traded looks.

“Now, let me get that tea, and then you can tell me what this is all about.”

Whatever Aunt Navareen gave
Wendon hit his stomach and nearly made him heave, but then it began to numb his nausea in a most pleasant way.

He listened as Etienne told every detail of what had transpired and was rather surprised to learn of the Dragon’s Tongue and the adventures Etienne and the others had.

“…So now we are fugitives,” Etienne said. “And I am trying to find Fenelon so I can help him find Alaric before Turlough Greenfyn does. But I was not expecting any of the mageborn of Ard-Taebh to find our trail so soon.”

“And you think this Bran is here to take you back to Dun Gealach?” Aunt Navareen said.

“I can think of no other reason for him to be here, especially since he came to the inn and asked about us, and paid the innkeeper gold to learn which room we were in.”

Aunt Navareen nodded. “Well, I will agree that it sounds rather like he is seeking you for some reason. What makes you think he will not find you here?”

Etienne sighed. “I really have no way of knowing how powerful this Bran is. The Aldens are said to be nearly as strong a bloodline as the Greenfyns.”

“I have heard that the Aldens have served the kings of Loughan for many years now,” Wendon said.

Etienne looked at him and smiled. “How true,” she said. “And I know that Greenfyns and Aldens have intermarried because Fenelon’s older sister is indeed wife to this Bran. What I suspect is that Turlough is so angry with our escape, he is going to every known relation of the Greenfyns he can find and threatening them so as to force them to help him find us.”

Wendon frowned. He wondered if the High Mage was making such threats to his own family. And to Shona’s.

My father will never forgive me,
Wendon thought blandly.

“That would make sense,” Aunt Navareen said. “Well, I can offer you shelter in the boughs tonight, if that is what you wish. But I doubt I could stop this Bran if he wanted to come here.”

Etienne nodded. “That’s all we ask. We will be up before the sun and on our way in the morning.”

“Where will you head?”

“I need to go some place where I can meditate, find a ley line and see if I can scry for Fenelon.”

“And who’s to say that Turlough is not watching the ley lines?” Wendon asked.

Etienne shrugged. “It is a risk I will have to take. Since I do not know where Fenelon sent Alaric in the first place, I cannot go there and track him. So I must try something vast and dangerous. But I will not do it here. On to the north is the Duchy of Maplehurst, and as I recall, there is an old ruin there from before the Great Cataclysm that is built on a ley line.”