"The Fey must make things," Becca said when they stopped next to a spring for waybread and tea, and to refill the water bottles.
She raised her cup, and pointed at the tea tin. "There is a trade market at Selkethe, and another at Lunitch!"
She felt a jolt of distress, and blinked at Meripen Vanglelauf's stern face.
"Assuredly, the Fey make things, and there has always been trade. Do you think that the clothes you wear are woven only from kest?"
"But—"
He took the cup from her hand, filled it with spring water, and handed it back to her.
"This is not tea," she said.
"It will be when you add the leaves and heat the water," he answered, filling his own cup. He glanced at the Brethren, apparently asleep on its back across the spring. "Would you like tea, Little Brother?"
"Tea," the Brethren said, mimicking the Ranger's voice. "Would you like tea, Little Brother?"
"I'll take that as a 'no'," he said, and reached for the tin. He sprinkled a few dry leaves into the water. Becca felt a brief warmth, saw a flash of green above his cup, and smelled spicy tea.
"We are children of the Vaitura," Meripen Vanglelauf said as Becca dropped a pinch of dried leaves into her cup. "If I wish to make a cup, I will find a piece of fall wood and shape it."
Becca frowned, drawing her kest carefully to the cup. The water boiled, and she withdrew the heat immediately, proud of her control.
"Would you," she asked, "use a knife, or kest to form it?" She looked up at him. "Your cup out of wood."
He tipped his head, as if it were a fair question to which he must give proper thought. "I would by preference use a knife, for my father taught me the pleasures of carving when I was a sprout. He carved his arrows by hand, as well, with only a veneer of kest to finish them, and to ensure that they flew true."
"The Fey I saw at the market at Selkethe was dealing in fabric," she said slowly, recalling the day as one might recall a pleasant dream. "A . . . friend . . . told a story of her grandmother, who had a pitcher from a Fey at market. Whatever went into it stayed fresh and never soured."
"Do you ask me how such things are made?" He gave her a faint smile. "Why not work out how it was done, yourself? Who knows when you might need a pitcher?"
Becca gave a small, and perhaps not quite ladylike snort. "For the pitcher . . . let me see. I would dig the clay and shape it, and fire it with my kest."
"I," Meripen Vanglelauf said, "would dig the clay, afterward shaping and firing it with kest, for my hands have not learned to make pitchers. Then a veneer of kest, to preserve whatever is placed within."
Becca sipped her tea, finding it pleasant. She lifted the cup. "Why drink or eat at all, then? Why not simply ask the plant to give you its essence?"
"Because drinking tea is pleasant," Meripen Vanglelauf said repressively, "and there is no harm in pleasure, so long as it harms none." He sighed. "Do you always have so many questions?"
Becca laughed. "I was a trial to Elyd, too," she said, and swallowed suddenly, lifting her cup to hide the sudden rise of tears.
"Who is Elyd?"
She cleared her throat. "He was . . . he cared for the horses, at Artifex," she said slowly. "I—he was my friend. Elyd Chonlauf. I think that—I think he may have been . . . subjugated. There were things he could not seem to remember, and when he looked at the trees beyond the wall . . . "
"If he was out of Chonist Wood, then it is probable. That land falls within Altimere's honor—or had done, before I slept."
"But—the Queen's Rule . . . "
Meripen Vanglelauf shrugged. "Altimere would not necessarily bide by the Queen's Rule. It is, however, just as possible that your friend had fallen to his will before the Queen's Rule was lain down."
"He—" Becca shivered, remembering. "Elyd. I had asked him if he had been in the war, and he—but he didn't know how long he had been in Altimere's service."
"Do you recall everything of your time under Altimere's protection?"
She blinked tears away. "Apparently, I was often asleep."
"We share another bond, then," he said, with forced lightness.
"I wonder that one who was pressed into sleep imposes it upon another so lightly," Becca said, snappish in her distress. She leaned across his knee to rinse her cup in the flow from the spring.
Fire crackled, green and gold, Becca gasped, her body aflame with desire, as if Altimere's will rode her of old. She moved, slowly, feeling the stroke of power along her flesh. Yearning, thoughtless, desiring, she reached for Meripen Vanglelauf, seeing in his scarred face a pure and infinite beauty; feeling the play of his kest against hers, knowing that he, too, desired.
"No."
Horror shuddered through her, and a tangled vision of pain: knives, corrosion, and a woman's hopeless scream.
"No!" Meripen Vanglelauf cried, revulsion in his voice.
Becca twisted, falling back onto her elbow. Pain lanced, scarcely noted in the greater pain of self-loathing. Shivering in mortification, she turned her head away, and wished that the ground would split open and swallow her.
Peace, Gardener. It was, she thought, an elitch tree that spoke. Ranger, peace.
Foolish as it no doubt was, she was comforted by the tree's voice, and—even more foolish—she thought that the Ranger was, as well.
Keeping her eyes steadfastly on the ground, she pushed herself to her feet, retrieved her fallen cup and packed it away. From the corner of her eye, she saw Meripen Vanglelauf rise, shrug on his pack and pick up his bow.
"We should go on," he said, perhaps to her, or perhaps to the Brethren, who seemed to still be slumbering in the grass.
"So soon?" it asked, leaping to its feet. It shook its horns, whether in frustration or amusement, Becca could not tell.
"Not far now," it said, and moved off at a brisk trot.
* * *
Fool, Meri berated himself. You already carry the burden of her kest—must you meld with her, too; make her a part of yourself forever? As Faldana is—or was . . . Your kest was guttering; the Gardener filled a vessel all but empty. He moved on, following Rebecca Beauvelley, who followed the Brethren That was the worst cut. Faldana had given up her kest to him in that terrible land beyond the keleigh, for had she sublimated there, she could not have returned to her own beloved trees. No, Faldana's doom was to give all that she was and had been into the keeping of Meripen Vanglelauf.
Who had lost her, finally and forever.
A branch caught on the Gardener's pack and whipped back, very nearly slicing him across the cheek. Which would, he acknowledged, have been only what he deserved. He had been stumbling through the wood like a Sea Wise, scarcely minding what he saw.
Not that what he saw was much more cheering than his thoughts. The trees had been dwindling for some while, in numbers and in vitality. Those they walked among now were scarcely distinguishable from bushes, with a few yellowish leaves clinging to their spidery branches. He raised his head, and fancied he saw the purple sneer of the keleigh across the bright midday sky.
There was a rustle among the dead leaves and withered grass. Meri looked down in time to see a long, naked tail disappear into a broken trunk. It was no sort of animal he recalled, and he stretched his legs in order to come to the Newoman's side.
"Rebecca Beauvelley," he said.
She looked up at him; her face was wet with tears. The sorrow that this caused him filled him with horror.
"I wish," she said hoarsely, "that you would call me Becca—or Gardener. To be using my whole name, when we are to come under—under the influence . . . "
He understood her concern all too well; one kept oneself close, in such country, under the scrutiny of such forces.
"Very well, Gardener," he said. "And I will be Ranger, here. I wished to caution you that this land has been altered by the forces of the keleigh. You may see strange animals; certainly, you will see a dying off of the trees and small growth."
"I crossed the keleigh once," she reminded him. "I remember the country between Selkethe and the Boundary itself looked as if it had recently burned over. I don't recall it as so . . . wide . . . a patch. We are not near yet, are we?"
He pointed to the purpling sky. "Approaching," he said. "Be alert. The care of the trees is thin in such places."
"Why," she asked, as they passed beside a elitch that had been split and blackened, as if by lightning. "Why was the keleigh built?"
Astonishingly, it was the Brethren who answered.
"The Old Fey built it to save themselves from their own folly," it growled. "They cut the ties that bind us to the world."
Becca the Gardener looked up to him, brown eyes wide.
"In sum," Meri told her, "that is precisely why—and how. The complete history is more complex, and encompasses half a dozen wars and games of dominion, such as the Elder High delighted to play."
"The Old Fey," she mused. "Like Altimere."
"That one," snarled the Brethren "Kin-taker. World-breaker. Changer. Caught now in his own trap."
"Caught?" she asked, as a shadow moved at the edge of Meri's eye.
He spun, saw the horn, the rolling red eye, and danced sideways, narrowly avoiding the thrust at his chest.
"Run!" he yelled, as it stormed past, tangling the horn in a tumble of dry branches, and trumpeting frustration. Perhaps, Meri thought, breathlessly, the care of trees was not . . . completely dead in this place.
The creature screamed again, and reared. The knotty twigs resisted . . . one broke.
Meri turned, saw the Gardener standing as if transfixed, her eyes wide and her lips parted, and grabbed her arm, dragging her along with him until her feet began to move under her direction.
"Run!" he shouted again.
Hooves pounding behind them, they ran.
* * *
The unicorn burst from the brush and charged, missing the Ranger by less than a finger's width. Becca stared as the mad whiteness thundered by, its horn momentarily entangled in a knot of dead sticks. A unicorn, she thought. There seemed to be room for only that one thought in her head. She stared, her feet rooted . . .
. . . and uprooted as Meripen Vanglelauf yanked her along with him, very nearly twisting the arm from its socket in doing so. Once she was running, the unicorn out of sight, she could think again—and she could be afraid.
"Run!"
Becca ran. From behind came a scream of pure fury and the pounding of hooves. Ahead, the path twisted and turned between the blasted remains of trees. She ran, pack pounding bruisingly against her back.
Was the sound of hooves from the rear getting louder?
The path ahead twisted—and vanished into a confusion of deadfall and scrub trees.
Becca twisted to the right—the hoof beats were louder; and she could hear angry snorts. Ahead—ahead the path narrowed into a tunnel, branches and shadows woven together overhead.
"In there!" the Ranger panted, but she needed no urging to dive into the tunnel and run on, shoulders bent and pack scraping the indistinct ceiling.
From behind came a shriek of utter fury, reverberating along the walls of their sanctuary. Becca sobbed and clapped her hands over her ears, stumbling on as the walls of the passageway grew thinner and the light faded to black, starless night.
She was not running now; she was groping her way, hands before her, glad of their golden glow, though the light pierced the dark barely a step ahead.
"Can you," she gasped, when she felt she had regained enough breath to power her voice, "see in the dark?"
"Somewhat," came the winded reply. "But not in this."
"If we should come to a precipice . . . "
"Hold a moment, and I will take the lead."
"So you may have the honor of falling to your death first?" Becca asked. She heard a gasp from behind her, and was sorry that she had not seen how the laugh had altered his face.
"Wait," he said, then. "There's light ahead."
She squinted. "I don't—yes. I do see it. Let us hope that there isn't a unicorn waiting for us at this side."
"What," Meripen Vanglelauf said as they inched onward, "is a unicorn?"
"A storybook creature, on—the other side of the keleigh," she said. "Have you never seen one?"
"This is my first," he admitted. "What is their service?"
"They honor maidens," she said. "Mind! The tunnel turns downward."
The slope became more pronounced, running down toward a toothy oblong of light. Becca ran the last bit, to keep her footing, and burst from the cramped darkness, her pack scraping on thorns and rock, into a wide sandy field pocked with weeds.
* * *
Meri crouched at the end of the tunnel, staring out at a bleached and dying land. There was not a single tree within the sight of his shorteye, and the air tasted of sand. In the near distance, a structure loomed, built of stone and murdered trees. He leaned back into the comforting darkness and swallowed against the surge of sickness. Newmen! Had they killed every tree on the land in order to build that terrible dwelling?
Becca the Gardener was on her knees, taking up a handful of sandy soil as if she hoped to learn something from it—perhaps, he thought, she sought after the manner of its doom. For himself, he had seen enough. There was indeed a hole in the hedge.
"Gardener," he called. "Let us return."
She looked up at him, her face vague, as if she had forgotten him entirely.
"Return?" she repeated. "No, we cannot."
"There is nothing more to see," he said, keeping his voice sweet. The emotion quivering along the kest-bond was something akin to pain, and, though he did not understand her service, certainly he could imagine that a gardener would only be distressed by this wasted place. "The Brethren told true. We take it now to Sian, and she to the philosophers."
"No," she said again. She dropped the handful of sand and pointed at the monstrous structure of wood and stone. "That is—that is my father's house! I grew up here!" She turned to stare at him where he sheltered yet inside the tunnel.
"What has happened?" she cried. "How could the land have died so quickly? I have only been gone a matter of months—perhaps, perhaps a year. This—" She waved a despairing hand, indicating, Meri thought, the desolation surrounding her—"what could have caused this?"
"That is why we must take this to the philosophers," he said, reasonably. "Come, Gardener."
"You may go," she told him, rising to her feet and turning her face away. "Your service is not here. Mine is."
With no further ado, and without a word of farewell, she walked off, away from him and toward the house that she claimed as her own.
Meri watched her leave, walking balanced and determined, very much, he thought, like a Ranger returning to her own wood after a weary wandering. For himself, he would no sooner set foot on this tainted, terrible land than—
His muscles twitched and he was jerked up unceremoniously, banging his head on the ceiling of the tunnel.
"No," he whispered, but the sunshield heeded his plea not at all. Bound, compelled, he walked after the slim, determined figure, stiffly for the first few steps, as horror induced him to fight the compulsion, then at a light run, as he accepted his doom and raced to catch her up.