Of Truth and Beasts

Chapter 9

The monotonous creak of wagon wheels mixed with clopping hoofs still echoed in Wynn’s head when they set up camp each night. One day blurred into the next until the caravan stopped for two days to repair a wagon wheel, and she realized that more than half a moon had passed.

The line of wagons traversed an expansive valley between high ridges, rocking along on a northeasterly inland path. Grass-covered stone hills flowed down into intermittent woods of wild green brush, and the trees marked the landscape difference most of all. There were fewer firs and pines, as in the Numan lands, and far more massive, leafy, deciduous growths. The hardened dirt road was so old that it often exposed packed stones uncovered by years of use and rainfall.

Like the seasons’ rhythms, Wynn’s daily life changed from her time aboard the ships. She drove the wagon all day while Chane and Ore-Locks slept in the back, under cover, and on opposite sides of the wagon. Then they woke to stand guard all night.

Shade napped only during the day, perched upon the wagon’s bench with Wynn, but she never seemed to fully sleep. Often, she would suddenly lift her head, going rigid all over as she stared into the wild. It happened most when they passed through densely wooded regions. Her vigilance began making Wynn more nervous in having left civilization. And too often, Wynn began peering into the trees as well, waiting to hear a voice or voices of the Fay rise in her thoughts.

But the trees were silent, and the wagon rolled on. Soon the isolated woods thickened into even denser forests between the open fields and hills.

One day, as dusk approached, Chane and Ore-Locks were asleep in the back when Wynn spotted a side road beyond the wagon line’s head. Another appeared shortly after on the other side. They’d come to a main fork.

The chieftain, A’drinô, shouted from ahead for a halt. He came striding back to Wynn’s wagon, his heavy braid swinging as he walked, and he pointed to the left, northeasterly path.

“That leads to Lhoin’na lands and a’Ghràihlôn’na,” he said. “Keep to the road, and you’ll come to an open plain. Their forest proper is beyond it, and the capital not much farther.”

A’drinô gestured toward the southeast fork on the right.

“We’ve a few stops along the valley’s southern foothills.” He glanced at Shade, then back at Wynn, and a wry smile spread across his mouth. “Tell your pale friend and the dwarf they might not be missed. Some of my men have grown lazy, sleeping through the nights.”

“Thank you for everything,” Wynn replied, though she was puzzled. Apparently the caravan wasn’t bound for Lhoin’na lands; perhaps they had no cargo to trade there.

A’drinô nodded, still smiling, and turned away. But he paused, glancing northward with a frown.

“Lhoin’na patrollers are ... strict about anyone crossing the plain.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Never understood it. They allow no blood spilled there, neither for hunting nor injury. Keep any weapons sheathed or stored, and take it slow, at a comfortable pace.”

His words tickled something at the back of Wynn’s mind—something about an open field on the way to an elven forest. She couldn’t remember what it was, let alone where she’d heard ... whatever she couldn’t remember.

“You don’t know why?” she asked.

“For any people, the reasons for some old ways can be long forgotten. All that’s left is a tradition. But polite as the elves are in their way, they take this one seriously.”

Wynn nodded, anxious without knowing why. A’drinô returned a curt bow and walked away. When the caravan rolled on and Wynn reached the fork, she guided the wagon out of the line and onto the side road.

Shade immediately rose on the bench, ears stiff as she watched the caravan leave them behind. She turned about, pressing her shoulder against Wynn and exhaling two sharp huffs.

—stay ... Wynn ... people—

With those words came another flash of the night the Fay had assaulted Wynn.

“This is the only way,” she answered, but even she watched the trees closely.

The farther they went, the more Shade fidgeted, trying to watch everywhere at once. But in less time than expected, a break in the forest appeared ahead. Wynn pulled the horses to a halt where the trees stopped.

An open plain of tall grass gently undulated with tans and traces of yellow-green. Wynn thought she spotted hints of white wildflowers, but they were too hidden to see clearly. Farther out, the edge of a vast forest, more overwhelming than the one she left, stretched both ways beyond sight.

At first, the trees didn’t seem too far away, but then Wynn realized why. Where the road entered between them, it looked like no more than a thread in width. The tallest of those trees were immense, ancient sentinels.

Wynn had never been here before, but the sight was eerily familiar.

Shade huffed again, looking off to the left as she shoved in closer against Wynn. A dull, distant pounding grew in volume.

Three riders came across the grassy plain at a full gallop. The rear pair held their reins one-handed, and gripped long, wooden poles in the other. The leader appeared to hold only a bow in his free grip. But as they raced nearer, the first thing Wynn noticed about the riders themselves was their hair and eyes.

Oversized and teardrop-shaped, their amber irises glowed in the falling sun’s light. All three had their wheat- or sand-colored hair pulled up and back in high tails held by single rings, and the narrow tips of their tall ears were plain to see. They were garbed in tawny leather vestments with swirling steel garnishes that matched sparkling spaulders on their shoulders. Running diagonal over their chests, each bore a sash the color of pale gold. As they drew closer, slightly curved sword hilts became visible, protruding over their right shoulders.

Wynn grew relieved. These had to be the border guard that A’drinô had mentioned. At least as a sage, she might ask for escort.

The leader reined in his tall russet mare directly in front of the wagon’s horses.

“Veasg’âr-äilleach,” Wynn said, greeting him.

His stern expression relaxed as he quizzically raised a thin, slanted eyebrow. Wynn noticed a silver ash-leaf brooch on his sash, though the other two didn’t wear one. He nodded and his thin lips parted, but a reply never came.

His gaze fixed on Shade, and he sucked in a hissing breath. Horror flattened his features just before they wrinkled in anger.

“Valhachkasej’ä!” he spat at her.

Wynn tensed at the foul utterance Leesil had often used. She’d even picked up his bad habit, but she’d never heard it aimed at her. Before she could speak, the leader reached over his left shoulder and pinched the notched end of an arrow in his quiver.

“Pull the wagon back, woman!” he commanded in Elvish.

“What? I don’t—” Wynn started.

“Now ... despoiler!”

“Blessed Bäynæ, what is the problem?” Ore-Locks growled from the wagon’s back.

Wynn heard further rustling behind her but didn’t take her eyes off the patrol’s leader. Her wagon wasn’t even onto the plain yet, and he wanted her to retreat?

“I don’t understand,” she finished in Elvish. “Why can’t—”

The leader’s hand flashed down across his face.

Wynn heard a crack close beside her, and Shade erupted into loud snarls. An arrow shaft vibrated between them, its head buried in the wood near her thigh.

“Force her down!” the leader shouted.

The other patrollers lowered blunt lances, and Wynn’s breath caught as they kicked their mounts into a lunge. One lance slipped between her and Shade, separating them before she could move. Shade snapped it in her jaws as the rider tried to sweep it toward Wynn.

Wynn exhaled, “Oh, seven hells!”

This wasn’t about her; it was about Shade.

“I can explain,” she called, forgetfully slipping into Numanese. “Just let me—”

The other lance struck her shoulder.

Wynn tumbled off the wagon’s side, slamming down beside it. She’d barely rolled over when she heard the canvas snap. Over the thud of two feet, she heard a rasping hiss.

Chane stood over her, gloved and cloaked, his face obscured by the leather mask and darkened glasses. She could only imagine what he looked like to the elven patrollers.

“No,” Wynn groaned, “ah no!”

Chane heard Wynn speaking with someone but could not understand either of them. It was likely Elvish, as he had heard Wynn speak in the strange, lyrical lilt a few times. Though not dormant, he was groggy and barely aware. He had not taken a dose of the potion for several nights, and the last one was beginning to wear off.

His awareness increased when Ore-Locks had grumbled, “Blessed Bäynæ, what is the problem?”

Wynn shouted something more, and then a crack of wood cut her off.

Chane heard—felt—it through the wagon’s frame. Something had struck the bench above his head. When Shade snarled, Chane frantically groped for his mask and glasses.

“A’Jeann a-shéos è!” shouted an angry, lilting voice.

“Oh, seven hells!” Wynn said breathily.

More shouts and scuffling hooves built as Chane ripped away the canvas. He vaulted the wagon’s side, nearly landing atop Wynn. She was curled on the ground, holding her shoulder, and he jerked out both swords.

Three elven riders blocked the wagon’s path. An arrow was stuck in the wagon’s bench. Shade snarled and snapped at the trio.

This was all Chane needed to know.

“No ... ah no!” Wynn whispered.

He did not look down, and rasped out one word: “Shade!”

Chane vaulted over Wynn as Shade leaped, her paws touching twice along a thick, protruding lance.

The instant Chane jumped over Wynn, she scrambled up the wagon’s side, but Shade had already charged, as well. The dog bounded off the lance and rammed headlong into the patrol’s leader. Both tumbled off the flanks of the panicked, rearing horse. Then Ore-Locks rolled out of the wagon’s back, bleary-eyed.

“All of you! Stop this!” Wynn shouted. “Èan bârtva’na!”

The first lunging rider swept his lance across the bench and at her head.

Wynn ducked, and then someone grabbed the back of her cloak. She spun as she was slung around and barely caught herself on the wagon’s rear wheel.

“Get back, and stay there!” Ore-Locks ordered.

A rider wheeled his mount around the wagon.

“Behind you!” Wynn shouted.

Ore-Locks twisted back as the lance’s blunt tip came straight at his head. He slapped it aside, but the rider’s horse barreled straight into him. Wynn’s mouth gaped, and she lurched off the wagon’s wheel, reflexively trying to reach for him. But Ore-Locks didn’t go down.

The hulkish dwarf’s heavy boots skidded across the packed earth and stones under the horse’s momentum. Then they caught, and he rooted.

Ore-Locks’s thick arms wrapped around the horse’s shoulders, and he grabbed the saddle’s girth on both sides. The rider dropped his lance and reached over his shoulder for his sword’s hilt. Before Wynn shouted another warning, Ore-Locks heaved.

The rider went slack-mouthed as his mount’s front hooves left the ground.

Ore-Locks let out a guttural growl through clenched teeth. He wrenched sideways on the saddle’s girth. Rider and horse began to topple, and then both tumbled off the road in a crackle of branches and brush.

“Stay down, you yiannû-billê!” Ore-Locks shouted as his opponent thrashed in the tangle.

A clang of steel jerked Wynn’s attention ahead. The third rider had dismounted, sword in hand, and was trying to drive Chane out of the plain’s grass and toward the wagon. He was holding Chane at bay, at least, and Shade ...

Wynn ran past Ore-Locks before he could grab her.

Shade had forced the patrol leader along the road into the plain. The man held out his sword, still sheathed, fending her off. Wynn saw only one way to end this quickly.

“Chane, no blood!” she shouted.

He ignored her and sidestepped, trying to get around to his opponent. The elven patroller shifted the other way, never taking his eyes off Chane, but he stalled at the sight of Wynn and exposed his side. It was a terrible mistake, and the only thing Wynn could hope for in a panicked moment.

Wynn ran headlong, ducking at the last instant as the patroller raised his sword.

“Wynn!” Chane rasped.

Wynn’s small shoulder rammed into the elf’s side. She tumbled more than rolled through the tall grass, and she kept tumbling blindly to get out of reach. When she regained her feet, her shoulder ached even more, and she wavered a little.

The elf rose out of the grass with his long, delicately curved sword in hand.

“Back off, Chane,” Wynn called, and turned to face his opponent. “No blood! Na-fuil!”

The elf hesitated. Before he changed his mind, she spun and ran for Shade.

The leader stood three paces off, shifting at each of Shade’s snapping lunges as she tried to find an opening. He gave her none and held his ground, though his sword was now out of its sheath.

Apparently, any tradition against spilling blood went only so far here when they thought a human had taken a majay-hì. But the leader held his blade at guard rather than readied to strike.

The patrollers appeared to think Wynn had stolen a sacred majay-hì from their forest. But if they’d stopped to think about the obvious, she might have had a moment to explain. She was entering, rather than leaving, their lands.

“Shade, stop it!” Wynn shouted, resisting the urge to grab the dog, and she looked to the leader. “I’m no despoiler—na-re-upâr! I didn’t steal the majay-hì. She came for me ... â a’cheâva riam—”

“I understand you, woman,” the leader returned in clear Numanese.

Shade broke off her attack, circling back and rounding closely against Wynn’s legs. The leader stared at her for a few seconds, and then raised his voice.

“Na-bârt—a’greim äiche túâg!”

Wynn glanced back as he ordered his men to hold their positions.

There was Chane right behind her, his back to hers. He had his shorter blade in his left hand, point down, with the dwarven sword at the ready in the other. His opponent stood beyond sword’s reach, looking to his superior.

Back near the wagon, Ore-Locks stood in the brush, staring down, with one large fist clenched. Wynn could only assume he had the third patroller pinned under his foot.

This was a mess, and one she should’ve foreseen. She’d seen how the an’Cróan had first reacted to Chap traveling among humans. Here, by what little she knew, majay-hì didn’t mingle among the Lhoin’na as they did among the an’Cróan, let alone outside their lands.

Wynn reached back to touch Chane’s elbow. “It’s all right. I can ...”

Her voice failed when she felt the shudder in his arm, and he did not stop shaking at her touch.

“Chane?”

She glanced back again, and then lifted her gaze briefly.

In the west behind her, the sun had barely dropped into the treetops beyond the wagon. Chane’s outer protection obviously wasn’t enough for him to last much longer.

Wynn turned and grabbed his arm.

“Get in the wagon, quick,” she whispered in Belaskian, so no one else would understand. “I can handle this, and—”

“No!” he rasped, though it came out grating under strain.

“Don’t be an idiot.” She jerked on his arm, though she couldn’t pull it down. “Shade and Ore-Locks are here. Just do it, before this gets any worse and someone gets suspicious.”

He stood there until she pulled on his arm again.

Chane half turned, lowering his head, but all Wynn saw was a featureless leather mask and dark, round lenses. He finally pulled away, slowly and widely sidestepping around his opponent.

Wynn turned back to the leader, not knowing how to explain Chane’s disturbing appearance, so she didn’t try.

“Look at me,” she said, brushing a hand down her short robe. “I am a sage, come from Calm Seatt to deliver an official communication from my Premin Council to that of your branch. So either please escort me to the city ... or get out of my way.”

Shade stepped forward, growling at the patrol leader. He didn’t even flinch, but as he looked at her, his brow wrinkled in confusion. A majay-hì, far from where it should be, was ready to turn on him for the sake of a human.

This was the last way Wynn could’ve ever wished to enter Lhoin’na lands for the first time.

Chane lay alone beneath the canvas in the wagon’s back, listening. He heard the clop of horses to the left and the right, and he knew the patrol was still present as the wagon rolled along. But he could also hear his companions.

Ore-Locks whispered, “Why did they bother inspecting our horses for wounds before letting us onto the plain?”

“I don’t know,” Wynn answered.

Neither did Chane. He still puzzled over Wynn’s instruction that no blood be spilled in this place.

“Wait!” Wynn whispered excitedly. “Stop the wagon.”

The wagon lurched to a halt.

“What’s wrong?” Ore-Locks asked.

“Look at all of this,” Wynn breathed.

Chane frowned. This was no time for her to be taking in the view.

“Just flowers,” Ore-Locks scoffed. “Strange enough, but nothing to—”

“Not just wildflowers,” Wynn answered. “They’re anasgiah, a sacred—”

“What did you say?” interrupted a third voice.

The strange accent and blunt tone marked it as the patrol leader, the one who had finally introduced himself as Althahk.

“The flowers,” Wynn answered. “Why do you have anasgiah planted all over here?”

A long pause followed.

“You mean anamgiah?” he asked. “It is a healing and cleansing herb that grows wild, suitable to this plain’s tranquillity.”

Chane was already trying to get his mask and glasses back on. Premin Hawes had corrected him the same way when shown translated notes from the Seven Leaves of Life. If he had heard right, one of those seven was here, all around him.

“Yes, um, that’s what I meant,” Wynn answered.

Chane heard Ore-Locks cluck and then flick the reins. As the wagon lurched, Chane peeked out from beneath the canvas’s edge.

The sun had not fully set, and he ground his teeth as the glasses darkened. He waited for them to adjust, hoping he would not miss what Wynn had seen. As the wagon moved onward, a small bit of white appeared in the tall grass beyond the road’s edge.

Chane’s gaze locked as it slipped slowly by.

The dome of tiny, pearl-colored flowers was almost phosphorescent in the fading light. Their leaflike blossoms grew in clusters that shimmered like white velvet. The stems appeared so dark green, they were nearly black.

All Chane wanted was to climb out and snatch them up. Then they were gone. As the wagon rocked down the road, he searched the grass, though his view was far too limited. He caught only two more glimpses of white too far out in the deep grass to see clearly.

“Hand me the reins,” Wynn said.

“Why?” Ore-Locks returned.

“We’ll be entering the forest shortly, and I should drive.”

This was not an adequate answer to Ore-Locks’s question, but it said much to Chane. Wynn had told him of her experiences within the Elven Territories of the an’Cróan, and of what Chap had learned concerning the Ancient Enemy’s hordes of long ago.

No undead could enter an elven forest. Or, specifically, by Wynn’s reasoning, no forest protected by an ancient tree called Sanctuary, or its like offspring on Chane’s own continent.

The forest itself would sense any undead and confuse it with madness and fright. Then the majay-hì would come to pull it down and slaughter it. In Chane’s time with Welstiel, that cold madman had also mentioned this.

As an undead, how could Welstiel have known and survived to speak of it?

Chane stroked his thumb over the ring of nothing, fitted snuggly on his left third finger. Perhaps the forest had not known Welstiel was there. Chane braced himself, waiting.

He did not know what to expect, and Wynn had also worried about this moment. He lay there so long in hiding, wondering how close they were. He began feeling exhausted by tension, and at last his grogginess began to wane.

Had the sun finally set?

“Chane, you can come out,” Wynn said softly. “We’re there!”

Chane flipped the canvas aside and heard Shade, who was also in back, growl as its corner flopped over her rump. Darkness filled his view, and he pulled off the glasses and mask, immediately pivoting onto one knee. They were surrounded by the trees.

Wynn glanced over her shoulder, first at him and then beyond. He followed her gaze to the two elven patrollers still behind the wagon. They both took note of his sudden appearance and frowned slightly in silence.

Likely Althahk was out in front. This was not good. If Chane was wrong about the ring, the last thing Wynn needed was to be caught bringing an undead into their land.

Chane began to feel ... something.

A nervous twitch squirmed through his body. Perhaps it was only some effect of the violet concoction amplified by his anxiety. He peered into the trees all around. They were everywhere. One passed by right next to the wagon, and he leaned away on instinct.

The trunk was as large as a small fortification tower, and at least so wide that the wagon did not reach its far side before the trailing riders drew parallel with it.

A tingling, annoying itch began swarming erratically over Chane’s skin. There was no breeze in the forest, but the sensation was like streams of dust blown over his exposed face and hands.

The prickling grew.

It brought a memory of toying with an anthill as a child. Chane remembered speck-sized insects crawling over his shirtsleeve, looking for a way to get in ... to find out what he was. He pivoted slowly, beginning to shake, until he faced Shade sitting on the wagon’s far side.

She watched him silently, her large, crystalline irises too bright in the dark.

Chane turned away. He knew the forest’s wards, or whatever guarded it, were no superstition. But even that told him more as his thumb rubbed nervously over the ring he wore.

His thoughts were still sound and clear beneath the fear.

“Are you all right?” Wynn whispered.

“Yes ... I am fine.”

Wynn pulled out a cold lamp crystal, rubbing it brusquely on her thigh until it brightened, and handed it off to Ore-Locks.

She’d been so eager to get here that she’d been careless and forgotten good sense. She hadn’t thought of what Shade’s presence might evoke from the Lhoin’na, let alone about running into any of them before reaching her destination. Now traveling with this armed escort, she couldn’t shake all she’d learned in her time among the an’Cróan concerning the undead and their forest.

To complicate things, she’d just rolled Chane right into such a place.

There’d been no chance to let him test it cautiously. They’d both known this was coming, but reality was a far cry from anticipation. Bringing him here had been a blind gamble, for her as well as him, all the while hoping that tiny ring would protect him.

He seemed all right, though his eyes were wide and watchful. Then she noticed his left hand trembled as he fidgeted with the ring.

Ore-Locks remained silent, studying their surroundings, and Wynn turned her attention ahead.

Above them, the lowest branches of the largest trees were thicker than her body. Higher still, they had long since twisted and intertwined. Not a single night star showed through the canopy. It was all too quiet.

“What is that up ahead?”

Wynn flinched at Chane’s rasp right behind her head. At first, she couldn’t see anything beyond Althahk and his horse. A slight flicker appeared, followed by more. As they drew closer, those glimmers took shape as distinct lights. Some of them were too high above the ground.

“Dwellings ... in the trees,” Chane whispered.

Wynn couldn’t quite make out what he saw. His vision at night was far better than hers. Shade huffed once, and Wynn twisted her head. The dog stared back and huffed once more—one single utterance, too startlingly familiar.

Wynn remembered Chap’s system used with Leesil and Magiere. He’d used one bark for “yes,” two for “no,” and three for “unknown” or “uncertain.” Had Shade seen this in some memory of Wynn’s, and then added it to her own reluctant vocabulary?

Shade huffed once more.

Wynn frowned, turning forward again. Perhaps it was a good thing, but right now it was just unsettling.

“Not only domiciles,” Chane added, and pointed upward over Wynn’s shoulder. “That is a shop of some kind.”

There was no sign of a city or any such large settlement ahead, but they must have reached its outskirts. Even Ore-Locks craned his head back in astonishment.

Wynn’s eyes adjusted to those glowing points of light spread upward into the great trees’ heights. The thickest branches were the size of normal tree trunks. A complex system of walkways stretched between various levels.

People went about their ways in early nightfall. Tall elves stood on or walked the paths, stairs, and landings, circumventing structures mounted around the trunks or perched out on the more massive branches. Of those few that Wynn could make out passing near glimmering lanterns of glass and pale metals, everyone moved without a care for the heights.

“Lunacy,” Ore-Locks said. “One’s feet should remain upon the solid earth, as intended.”

Wynn wrinkled her small nose, remembering what he’d called the patroller during the confrontation.

“Don’t you ever again call one of them yiannû-billê—‘bush baby’ again,” she told him softly.

“Heat of the moment,” he replied under his breath.

Dwarves were a curious and accepting people. Wynn had never expected to travel with one who might be a bigot. It was one more thing that separated him from his kind—and all the more offensive considering his disguise. He was still attired like a shirvêsh of Feather-Tongue, who was a wise and worldly traveler spoken of in dwarven sacred myths and legends.

Chane leaned past Wynn’s side. She watched his gaze roam the heights in fascination. While he sometimes expressed arrogant attitudes and he could be coldly judgmental, new experiences always riveted him. If Chane hadn’t been forced into death and beyond it, he would’ve become a true scholar, no doubt.

Homes and small-to-medium structures blended into the leafy upper reaches, making it difficult to distinguish where one ended and another began. All were made of plank wood, though Wynn thought some roofs might be covered in cultivated moss. The branches of these huge spruces and oaks and gargantuan maples dwarfed the trees she’d seen along the journey.

One wavering light, low to the ground, caught Wynn’s eye. Not all of the settlement was built above.

Those lower structures were all dark but for a few lanterns somehow suspended along the paths between them. Perhaps these were for the more trade-and craft-related pursuits. How had all this come to be? Why did Lhoin’na choose these strange, high settlements, as opposed to the an’Cróans’ wilder enclaves upon the earth and their homes inside of living trees?

Shade whined, nosing into Wynn’s side. Wynn reached back, stroking the dog’s cheek.

Sudden memories of the an’Cróans’ wild Elven Territories rose in Wynn’s head—but they were not her own memories. The Lhoin’na forest must seem different to Shade, and Wynn hoped it didn’t make the young majay-hì too homesick.

“Althahk ... veasg’âr-äilleach!”

The patrol leader slowed his horse at the call of his name. Wynn drew in the reins as she searched the heights for the greeting’s source. A tall elf stood at a walkway railing ornamented with swirls and ovals of trained, leafy vines. It was hard to make him out, but a nearby lantern sent white and silver shimmers through his long, unbound hair.

“And fair evening to you, Counselor,” Althahk returned in their tongue.

“What brings you in so late, Commander?” the counselor asked. “And why do the Shé’ ith escort visitors to ...”

Wynn was too busy with that one unfathomable word to wonder about the long pause. That term wasn’t in the Elvish she knew or the older dialect of the an’Cróan. The root shéth meant “quietude” or “tranquillity,” sometimes “serenity.” Perhaps what she’d heard was something older still.

“The old one is looking at us,” Chane whispered from behind.

“It is odd, indeed,” Althahk answered back, and turned a stern eye on Wynn.

No, not at her, but at Shade.

“I will speak with you tomorrow,” the elder answered back.

By the time Wynn looked up, he was gone. Althahk clicked his tongue, and his horse moved on. Flicking the reins, Wynn guided the wagon onward.

In breaks between settlements, the forest’s guardian trees overwhelmed any hint of civilization. Glimpses of dwellings soon came more often, to the point where long, extended walkways began joining one to the next. Buildings among the massive trunks multiplied upon the forest floor, until Wynn couldn’t follow the pattern of them in the darkness, even by the wispy lantern lights along paths above or below.

The wagon rounded a gradual bend where the darkness appeared to break beyond the trees.

A sea of light struck Wynn as Althahk turned a final sharp bend. Her eyes popped as the group rolled through a living arch of two trees grown together high above.

Wynn was still blinking at spots of glare when a’Ghràihlôn’na—Blessed of the Woods—filled her whole view.

Sau’ilahk materialized upon the road a stone’s throw from the massive forest’s edge. He had already backtracked to find the caravan along another route; Wynn was no longer with it. Alone in the full night, he knew that she had crossed into those ancient trees and was on her way to the Lhoin’na sages.

Sau’ilahk could not follow, but what of Chane?

The road was the only way the wagon could have passed. If Chane had been left behind, he would be waiting here. Or had he gone with her somehow?

Impossible—unless there was more to that strange little ring.

Sau’ilahk wavered, staring about the grassy plain. It was a bitter place he had heard of only in his living days. So much had begun and ended here. An age ago, a line had been drawn, marked by where autumn’s dead grass met the ever-living green of that forest. The war’s waves of victory had broken here. But that wasn’t what had ended the war.

It had been as if Beloved had simply given in.

The time of victory would come again, and next time, the Children would not lead. Sau’ilahk would regain youth and beauty, awe and glory. He alone would dominate Beloved’s forces. Their worship would feed him more than all of the life he had consumed in his altered existence.

But what of Wynn Hygeorht? What did she seek in this place? Where was an orb that would free him? Where was lost Bäalâle Seatt?

That he depended on this whelp of a sage, an immature infidel, ate at him. He was not foolish enough to pass the tree line and would have to follow her from afar once more. A servitor of Air or Earth would not serve his needs this time. He needed an emissary of consciousness connected to his own.

He needed eyes as well as ears, and perhaps more.

Again, Sau’ilahk blocked out the world, focusing inward, and then looked down. Within his thoughts, he stroked a glowing circle for Spirit upon the road’s packed dirt. Within that came the square for Earth. Smaller still came another circle for Spirit’s physical Aspect as Tree. Between the lines of these shapes, he stroked the glowing sigils with his thoughts.

Spirit to the Aspect of Tree, Tree to the essence of Spirit, and born of the Earth.

His energies bled into the pattern on the road that only he saw.

Sau’ilahk’s form thinned to transparent in weariness, and then a shaft of wood cracked the dirt at the pattern’s center.

It jutted upward as if an overly thickened branch suddenly sprouted there. That short, bark-covered limb bent over, far suppler than it appeared. Along its length, six tinier limbs sprouted to lift its body and rip itself from the road. Turning around, a small knot of ochre root tendrils twitched around its base.

Sau’ilahk bled even more energy into his creation.

Bark peeled back around the root knot. Those tendrils coiled tighter and tighter into a ball. And that sphere took on an inner limelight, growing severe, until it blinked at him.

Flexing lids of wooden root tendrils clicked over one glowing orb like an eye. The servitor spun and rushed toward grass at the roadside.

No! Sau’ilahk commanded.

He reached for his fragment of consciousness embedded within his conjured creation. It halted in its tracks. He held it there as it struggled in resistance, until it finally submitted.

Remain unseen. Follow the trio of human, dwarf, and wolf.

As he released it, the servitor skittered away and shot into the tall grass. Only a ripple among those blades marked its passing. When the trail reached the tree line, that legged branch with one eye in a root knot skittered up a massive tree trunk and vanished into the forest’s canopy.

Sau’ilahk watched foliage shiver briefly and heard the faint click of its legs upon bark. His consciousness rode the servitor into a land where the dead could not walk....

At least none but perhaps Chane Andraso.

Passing through the city’s archway, Wynn wasn’t given time for awe. Althahk pulled his horse sideways before the wagon, forcing its horses to stop. He pointed off to the right.

“In there,” he commanded.

A large barn, perhaps a stable, was built on the ground. With the exception of smooth, rounded corners, it looked much like any barn in Wynn’s homeland. She didn’t care to be ordered about, but turned the wagon aside. Before the horses had stopped at the wide, closed doors, Althahk gave a shrill, trilling whistle.

One wide stable door slid aside. A bleary-eyed elven male of advanced years stepped out. Only a brief nod of acknowledgment passed between him and the commander. Then he turned to nod a greeting to Wynn—and he froze.

Unlike the commander’s stern suspicion or the counselor’s cold parting words, the stable master just blinked twice, eyes clearing at some wondrous, rare sight.

“Can you stable our horses and store our wagon?” she asked in Elvish, and climbed down.

The stable master almost couldn’t turn his eyes from Shade at first. When he did, he looked Wynn up and down with a friendly smile.

“Most certainly, sage,” he answered.

Everyone else disembarked as Wynn headed around back to retrieve her staff and begin dragging their packs out. But she paused at reaching for the chest.

“Will the rest of our things be safe here?” she asked.

“Certainly, sage,” the elder elf said again.

“How much?” Chane asked, reaching for his money pouch.

Both Chane and Ore-Locks would have difficulty communicating here. Ore-Locks spoke only a smattering of Elvish, and Chane spoke none at all.

“No need,” Althahk interrupted in Numanese, and both his men dismounted. “The guild will be notified and handle payment. Now, if you will follow—”

“I’m not going to the guild just yet,” Wynn said, and even Chane froze at this.

“Where else would you go at this time of night?” the commander challenged.

“There’s something I need to see for myself,” Wynn answered. “Unless you have further doubts or reason for interference, I won’t keep you from your duties.”

Althahk raised an eyebrow.

Wynn started off before even Ore-Locks or Chane could ask where they were headed. Shade fell into step, and at the last instant pulled ahead, pacing a dead line straight at the commander.

Althahk hesitated, stepping aside at the last instant. Wynn never looked back, though she heard Chane and Ore-Locks’s footfalls as they hurried to catch up.

All four of them headed down the wide lane into the brighter night lights. The stable might have seemed recognizable, but any semblance of familiarity ended as they walked into the “city” of trees.

Cleared stretches of paths slightly narrower than a common street were paved with packed gravel and natural stone slabs. Gardens and alcoves of flora flowed around made structures and up the tree trunks in tendril vines of glistening green leaves and night-closed flower buds. More earthbound buildings surrounded them than in the outer settlements. Their abundance was matched by tiers of higher structures above, all the way beyond sight in the canopy. In the street, there was a break in the trees above, like a matching road in the sky, where stars shone brightly beyond the haze of a nearly full moon.

Wynn slowed to barely a shuffle as she looked about. She had a sense of where to go from references on this city she’d found in the guild library. Somewhere on its northern side was another arch like the one through which they’d entered, but this exit would lead deeper into the forest.

“Where are you taking us?” Chane asked. “I thought we ... Wait!”

He grabbed her arm, pulling her aside beneath the shadow of a hanging building wrapped around one great tree. Its underfloor spread out above, shadowing them. The few people about were all on foot, but Wynn spotted what had startled Chane.

More patrollers—the Shé’ith—approached along the narrow street in a line of tall horses. They carried lances, but these had long and narrow steel tips. Their attire was the same as that of Althahk’s trio, and each bore another slightly curved sword in a shouldered sheath. A few had bows and quivers. There were many more of them—more than a dozen at quick count. Unlike the commander, the one in the lead bore a pearl white leaf brooch upon his sash.

“They’re all cavalry,” Chane noted. “Do you not find that strange ... for a tree-born race?”

“Yes,” Ore-Locks agreed quietly.

“Domin High-Tower once told me they value speed,” Wynn said, “being able to quickly traverse their forest or, rather, its surrounding lands.”

At mention of his brother, Ore-Locks’s expression darkened in silence.

Once the riders passed, Wynn took to the street again. She renewed her trek through this strange and beautiful forest-city, wondering how it would look by daylight. Some trees held multiple small structures up and around their trunks, like steps of giant, moss-roofed, shelf fungus with lantern light glowing through curtained windows.

What must it be like to live in a world that moved vertically as opposed to horizontally?

“Why do they live this way?” Chane asked, looking up.

Wynn shook her head. “Domin Tilswith couldn’t trace its history back far enough to learn how it began, let alone why. Just another ancient practice that became a way of life.”

But she still wondered. Even for elves, it seemed odd to her.

The an’Cróan’s founders had originally come from this land; thereby they shared the same forebears as the Lhoin’na. But those founders of the far-off Elven Territories had left amid the great war’s end. This way of life couldn’t have started until after that.

Shade crept out ahead, though she remained within Wynn’s reach. Again, although her home was a wild elven forest, these people were nothing like the more clan-based an’Cróan. And more than one passerby stumbled and froze, stunned as they watched a black majay-hì leading two humans and a dwarf. Wynn wondered if the majay-hì of this land remained barely more than living legend, even among the Lhoin’na.

A cluster of human merchants ambled out of a side path, all Numan, and one of them eyed Shade too long and almost tripped on the heels of his companions. Though he probably just wondered how a wolf—but too tall and lanky-legged—ended up as someone’s pet.

“Where are we going?” Chane asked.

“Out of the city,” Wynn answered, “and back into the forest.”

Again, he raised his eyebrow. “What could be out there that you have to see so urgently?”

“Aonnis Lhoin’n,” Wynn answered firmly. “First Glade.”