They came out of the trees at dawn, the sun rising behind them, striking rose-colored sparks from the walls of Sea Hold, and gleams of pure malevolence from the rows of silver trees marching down to the sea.
"No!"
It scarcely mattered which of them shouted in protest. Both went to their knees beneath the hammer of shock.
"No," Meri repeated, staring down at the silver-covered hillside. If Sea Hold had fallen, then they did indeed stand at the ending of the world.
"Where . . . " Becca whispered, around his sense of doom and hers. "Why are there so many?
"I'm a fool," Meri said at the same time. "Of course they are more numerous in the West. Sea Hold has a short cut."
Becca shook her head. "Short-cuts are transient," she began, and then pressed her lips together, remembering—but she had never known! Had she? And yet—it seemed a memory: Sea Hold maintained a short-cut, that drew its power off of one of the anchors of the keleigh.
"I didn't know that the keleigh had anchors," she whispered, and on the instant recalled that there were precisely three—at Sea Hold, at Rishlauf Forest, and at Donich Lake. "Meri, how do I know these things?"
"We melded," he answered, his voice just as soft. "I daresay I now recall your way of making a salve." He said the last word as if he had just learned it, then rose, warily, and held his hand down to her.
She slid her fingers around his and came to her feet. For a moment, they stood, looking down the slope as if the act of standing might have somehow altered what lay before them.
But no. The undead trees marched in disorderly clusters, down the hill, to the very edge of the sea. There were no birds, nor much of a breeze, the sea itself lay at the foot of the hill like a discarded mirror.
"Where are the ships?" Becca asked.
"Sian may have ordered them away, or they may have gone themselves. Sea Wise prefer to face danger from the back of the waves. No," he continued, his voice still soft, as if he did not wish to ruffle the unnatural silence; "the question we must ask is—where are the philosophers? Surely, Sian would have sent them out to deal with this . . . "
"Perhaps they're at the short-cut," Becca offered, and Meri nodded his head thoughtfully.
"Perhaps they are."
Who hears me? he asked, his thought bracing and clear.
There was no answer. It was as if the trees, too, were wary of disturbing the silence.
"Well, then." Meri sighed. "Let us to Sian. She will be able—"
"Gone," a familiar, growly voice said from the approximate vicinity of Becca's knee. She looked down into the Brethren's beast yellow eyes, and wondered why she was so certain that this was, indeed, their late companion of the road.
"Gone where?" Meri asked, his voice was cool as if they were discussing the weather, but with a thrill of inner alarm that prompted her to squeeze his fingers in intended comfort.
"The High don't tell the Low their errands."
"That is regrettably so," Meri said. "However, there's very little need, when the ears of the Low are so sharp."
The Brethren gave a low cough that Becca would not have recognized as laughter two days ago. "The High Queen draws in her power."
"Sian's gone to Xandurana?" Meri frowned. "With Sea Hold in peril? Did she take her philosophers with her?"
The Brethren blinked its yellow eyes and scratched the underside of its chin meditatively. "I can," it said at last, "show you the way."
Becca felt a frisson run down her spine; she felt Meri's fingers hard around hers.
"There's a hole in the hedge."
"Yes, there is!" she cried, pulling her hand free and rounding on the creature. "And we have been through it and back again, with no help nor care from you!"
"Wait," Meri said softly. He looked down at the Brethren "Another hole in the hedge?"
"Maybe so, maybe no. How many holes can there be?"
"That is an excellent question. Now, I have one for you. The last hole led us to land under the protection of Becca's kin. When we returned to the Vaitura, we stepped out into Vanglewood." He tipped his head. "Why was that?"
"Silly Gardener wanted to go home," the Brethren said with a yawn. "Longeye, too."
Becca looked to Meri. "It's saying that the holes go wherever we wish to go?"
"In which it is not dissimilar to the keleigh."
"When Altimere and I came through the keleigh, we still had half-a-day's ride through badlands until we came to Artifex," she protested.
"Fair enough. But you might have had a longer, if Altimere had wavered, and the keleigh let him out inside the mountains."
Becca closed her eyes—and opened them at Meri's soft laughter.
"Now," he said to the Brethren "This new-or-old hole in the hedge. That would be Sea Hold's short-cut, surely?"
The Brethren tipped its head to a side and closed one sun-colored eye.
"I never did see the charm in these holes," Becca commented after it became clear that the creature was not soon going to produce a sensible answer. "Shall we go after Sian, to Xandurana? Oh!" She pressed her fingers to her lips and raised her eyes again to Meri's face.
He tipped his head, eyebrow well up.
"I only just recalled—to get to Xandurana, one must . . . traverse a short-cut."
"Which action, in the present climate, can only be seen as foolhardy," he agreed with a faint smile. "Well, then, are we to be less foolhardy than the Engenium of Sea Hold, and all the Queen's Constant?"
"Yes, but, Meri—" She shook her head, and showed him empty palms. "Why is the Queen calling the Constant in?"
"The heroes are busy, inside the mist," the Brethren growled. "There are more holes, even if it is all the same."
Meri nodded, his mouth grim now. "If I recall my philosophy correctly, the weight of the . . . rejected . . . trees is placing a burden on the fabric of the Vaitura which it cannot long support."
Becca frowned. "So there will be more . . . holes?" she ventured. "Until the Vaitura . . . tears?"
"I would think that among the more likely outcomes," Meri said, remembering the tracks of the creature that had attacked her, and the misty window it had utilized. "In any case, Diathen must act, and in order to do so, she must convince the Constant to release the kest it holds in keeping for her."
"But, if Altimere and Zaldore are still missing?"
Meri shrugged. "If she has the majority of the Constant with her, so that she speaks fully with the will of the Vaitura, she will draw any kest withheld from her, like a sea spout draws water. If Altimere and Zaldore have returned to the elements which birthed them, then their kest will be one with the Vaitura."
"Because," Becca murmured, "kest is never lost."
"Aye."
"I can show you the way," the Brethren said, breaking its silence.
Becca sighed and shook her head. Meri bowed lightly.
"If you please, Younger Brother; show us the way."
* * *
Altimere had theorized—indeed, he had ardently desired!—a . . . livelier effect in a transfer which utilized living kest as its energy source, rather than the vapid release achieved by using keleigh-stuff.
Neither theory nor on-the-fly calculations had led him to expect the explosion of power that hurled him headfirst into his workroom. Who would have thought, he wondered, as he lay with his cheek pressed against the living wooden floor, that the Rangers had had so much to give? Cei's exultant anger would have lent an added fillip—had he not observed that principal in action with Rebecca? Yet it was true, he had not expected such a release, in such garish and thundering quantity that he had almost—almost—lost his focus. Happily, he had meditated for a dozen heartbeats upon the image of his workroom at the house in Xandurana before he had taken his place in the pattern.
Carefully, now, and noting aches and pains incompatible with one of his station, he pushed himself, first, to his knees, and then, by a process that included clawing his way up the leg of his worktable, to his feet. He rested, then, with his palms flat on the table's cool surface, shivering.
After a time, he began to feel stronger, and the relief that accompanied this observation revived him still more. He had expected some decline in his kest; the keleigh would have its tithe, after all. The sensation of weakness—of being without power—had been . . . distressing, but happily short-lived.
He straightened and looked about him. The workroom was orderly and well-dusted, of course; his servants would scarcely neglect that duty, whether he had been absent a single night, or ten thousand.
And that, he thought, walking to the door, was a matter of not inconsiderable curiosity to him. How long, precisely, had he been captive within Zaldore's little whimsy? How long had he afterwards spent wandering the mists of the larger keleigh? He felt a flutter of regret, that he would likely never know the precise number of days he had spent separated from the Vaitura. It would have been amusing to entertain Zaldore for the exact number of nights he had lain within her care. He would of course reveal his intention before the pleasantries began, and make sure to remind her occasionally of how long she had yet to suffer. Watching her vacillate between desire and dread of the coming hour would have lent an edge.
Well. Doubtless something else would recommend itself. There was, after all, no hurry—and tasks in queue before it.
The first of those being . . .
Simultaneously, he opened the door and extended his will.
There was a moment of—almost, he would have characterized it as surprise, save the Gossamers were incapable of such an emotion—or any other. He took note, and then forgot it as they manifested, tentacles weaving welcome, eager to receive his commands.
The welcoming scene before him smeared for a moment, as tears rose to his eyes. He blinked them aside with a vague feeling of disgust that was all but entirely swept away by an uprushing of joy as intoxicating as new-drawn kest.
He was home.
* * *
They followed the march of undead trees up the slope, Meri in the lead and Becca coming after. The Brethren made its own way, now and then allowing a glimpse of a tufted tail, as if to reassure them that they had its company still.
Becca moved with a graceful silence that she had surely learned from Meri, and kept the best distance she could from the unnatural trees. Before her melding, they had seemed to her to be strange in the extreme. Her new sensibilities pronounced them perversions. Her nerves clamored, lest the undead do some mischief to a true living tree, and therefore she kept a close lookout, even as she dreaded the need to come among them.
She shivered, wondering how Meri could tolerate such feelings of desperate horror and maintain so cool a countenance. Years of practice, doubtless—and the education bestowed upon a prince.
A stick lay in her path, concealed by grass and fallen leaves. Once, she would not even have seen it, much less avoided it altogether, choosing not to risk a stumble, should it turn underfoot.
Truly, she thought, she had gained all manner of useful things from Meri. It did occur to her to wonder, with a feeling of guilt, what he could possibly have learnt from her, to balance the richness of his lore. Making salves and mixing elixirs seemed tame stuff in trade, and of limited use to one who might merely ask a plant for its grace to be healed. Such a person had no need for lists of symptoms and hopeful cures, nor
even—
"Here," Meri said, softly.
She stood at his shoulder and looked with him at what had once been a grassy knoll, now bedamned with undead trees, encircling a burned spot on the grass.
"What," she asked, keeping her voice low as well, "am I looking at?"
"The place where the short-cut was," he said. "Sian must have realized—and either closed it, or had it closed." She felt a ripple of mirth that was certainly not hers; it seemed to be directed at the scorched spot.
"I'd say she closed it herself," Meri added, giving her the key to his amusement.
"Ah," Becca smiled, seeing Sian flinging turquoise fire toward a mist-filled gateway crowded by silvered trees—and then frowned.
"Closing the gate—didn't help."
"Recall that they have been pushing trees out of the keleigh using their own methods for some while," Meri said. "The short-cut may have made it easier for them, but they could get on very well, without."
"This way," the Brethren growled, abruptly at Becca's knee. "The hole in the hedge."
Becca eyed him. "You say yourself that one hole is much like another," she commented. "Or, indeed, may be the other."
"We may wish to observe this one, in either case," Meri said. "Unless you prefer to run to Xandurana?"
She looked at him, reading weariness in his face—and wariness, too.
"Must we still seek Sian?" she asked slowly. "If the Queen is preparing to act . . . "
"We have seen what has happened, across the keleigh," Meri said. "Diathen must be told."
She frowned. "Because the Fey must repair that ill?"
"Precisely," he said, and took her hand, looking earnestly into her face.
"We destroyed our enemy, and his lands," he said slowly. "Then, like children, we hid from what we had done, and threw up the keleigh, to keep us safe. We have sundered the world, in our arrogance. Now, it lies with us to mend it."
"But—the Queen. Surely, she will know this and—"
"The Queen must convince the Constant," Meri interrupted, turning away. "And that were the problem before."
"The Constant . . . withheld its support? Its kest?"
He shook his head. "The Constant—you understand that the Queen is the focus for the will of the Constant. Not only did they decree the keleigh against every argument and persuasion she could bring before them, but . . . " His voice died.
But Becca had remembered, now. "Not only did they agree to the keleigh's construction, but they lent the builders their support. Through her."
Head still averted, he nodded.
"It is," he said, "no easy thing, to be Queen."
"Well." He shook himself and looked about, his eye lighting on the Brethren
"Lead on, Little Brother. We are eager to behold this new wonder you have found for us."