Bristling Wood (33 page)

“By the gods!” He shook his head in amazement. “Who ever would have thought it, indeed? I can’t believe Jill would desert him, I quite simply can’t.”

Kneeling again, he stared at the sun-dancing water and thought of Jill. Her image built up slowly, and when it came, it was oddly wavering and blurred. She was sitting in a mountain meadow and watching while Perryn tethered out three horses, including her Sunrise. His first thought was that she was ill, because she sat so quietly, her mouth slack like a half-wit’s, yet it was hard to see, because the vision was so misty. With a toss of his head, he dismissed it.

“Now, this looks most dire, peculiar, and puzzling. I think me I’d best try for a better look.”

When he called aloud in Elvish for Wildfolk, four gnomes and a sylph materialized in front of him.

“Listen carefully, little brothers. I’ve got a task for you, and if you do it, I’ll sing you a song when you’re done. I want to go to sleep, and I want you to stand here and watch for danger. If anyone or any animal comes toward me, pinch me and wake me up.”

The gnomes nodded solemnly, while the sylph dipped and hovered in the air. Salamander lay down on his back, crossed his arms over his chest, and slowed his breathing until he felt that his body was melding with the sun-warmed earth. Then he closed his eyes and summoned his body of light. Unlike human dweomer-masters, who use a solid, bluish form shaped like their own body, the elven thought form is much like an enormous flickering flame, yet with an ever-shifting face peering out of the silver light. Once Salamander’s form lived steady in his imagination, he transferred his consciousness over to it, at first only pretending to look out of its eyes at his body lying below, then seeing the world in the bluish etheric light. He heard a sound like a sharp click; he was out, on the etheric plane, looking down from the flame shape at his sleeping body, guarded by the Wildfolk, and joined to him by a long silver cord.

Slowly he rose up, orienting himself to the valleys, bright red and glowing with the dull auras of plants, and to the stream, which exhaled elemental force in a rushy silver curtain that rose high above the water. Getting entangled in that curtain could tear him apart. Carefully he moved away from it before going higher, then thought of Jill. He felt a certain tug pulling him in her direction, and set off to follow it, For a long ways, impossible to measure on the etheric, he sped over the dull-red forests, broken here and there by brighter patches of farmlands, tended by the peasants whose auras gleamed around them, pale yellows and greens, mostly, in the bluish light of the plane. As he traveled he became more and more aware of Jill’s presence, pulling him forward.

Yet in the end he had a guide. He had just flown high over a small stream when he saw one of the Wildfolk coming toward him. In its proper sphere the creature was a beautiful nexus of glowing lines and colors, a deep olive, citrine, and russet with a spark here and there of black, but it was obviously in distress, swelling up twice its size, then shrinking and trembling.

“Here, here, little brother,” Salamander thought to it. “What’s so wrong?”

For an answer it spun and danced, but dimly he could feel its emotions: rage and despair for something it loved. He remembered then Jill’s gray gnome.

“Do you know Jill?”

It bobbed and swelled with joy.

“I’m her friend. Take me to her.”

The gnome swept on ahead of him like a hunting dog. As he flew after, dodging round the curves of a hill, Salamander saw far below him the mountain valley, a red-glowing bowl of grass, dotted with the dim silvery auras of the horses, and two human auras, Perryn’s a strange green and gray that Salamander had never seen before, Jill’s pale gold—but enormous, swelling up around her, sending off billows, then shrinking again but to a size far too large for any human being. When he dropped down toward her, he saw Perryn turn and say something. From the young lord’s aura came a light-shot surge, spilling over Jill like an ocean wave. In response, her aura billowed and sucked the magnetic effluent up.

Salamander hovered, trembling with shock. At that moment, Jill looked up, straight at him, and screamed aloud. She had seen his body of light.

“Jill, I’m a friend!”

Yet although she could see him, she couldn’t seem to hear his thought. She flung herself to her feet and pointed at him, yelling all the while at Perryn, who merely looked puzzled. Salamander swooped away, following the silver cord as fast as he dared back to his body, which lay safely where he’d left it with the Wildfolk still on guard. He swooped down until he hovered over it, then let himself go. Again the click, and he felt flesh wrap him round, warm and painfully heavy for a moment. He dismissed his body of light then sat up, slapping his hand thrice on the ground to seal the end of the working. The gnomes looked at him expectantly.

“My thanks, my friends. Come travel along with me for a while. I’ll sing you the song I promised, but I’ve got to make speed, A good friend of mine has been well and truly ensorceled.”

In a flood of silver light the dawn climbed up purple mountains and washed over the meadow, a green torrent of grass that swirled in the summer wind. Jill sat on their blankets and watched Perryn, crouched down by the fire, where he was heating water in a little iron kettle. He took his razor, a bit of soap, and a cracked mirror out of his saddlebags and began to shave, as calmly and efficiently as if he were in a bedchamber. Jill had a vague thought of slitting his throat with the long sharp steel razor, or perhaps her silver dagger, but thinking was very difficult.

“You’d best eat somewhat,” he remarked.

“In a bit.” Speaking was difficult, too. “I’m not truly hungry.”

Idly she looked away, only to see her gray gnome, hunkered down some yards beyond Perryn. She was so glad to see the little creature that she jumped up and ran over, but just as she bent down to pick it up, it snarled, swiped at her with its claws, and vanished. Very slowly she sat down right where she was, wondering why the gnome was so angry at her. It seemed that she should know, but the memory wouldn’t return. She picked up a pebble from the grass and stared at it, a constant wavering flow of crystalline structure made visible, until Perryn came to fetch her away.

All that morning they rode through the forest, following long, roundabout trails. Every tree was a living presence, leaning over the trail and reaching down to her with, brushy fingers. Some frightened, her; others seemed perfectly harmless; still others, a definite few, seemed to be asking her to befriend them, with a trembling outreach of leafy hands. When she looked away from the trail, the forest changed into a maze of solid walls, broken only by shafts of sunlight, as heavy as stone. Although at times Jill considered simply riding away from Perryn, she was hopelessly lost. Every now and then she thought of Rhodry and wondered if he was trying to follow them. She doubted that he’d believe her when she told him that she hadn’t ridden away of her own free will—if, indeed, he ever caught them. How could he find her, when the whole world had changed?

Every color, even the somber gray of the rocks, seemed as bright and glowing as a jewel. Whenever they came to a clearing or a mountain meadow, the sun poured over her like water; she could swear that she felt it dripping and running down her arms. The sky was a solid dome of lapis lazuli, and for the first time in her life she truly believed that the gods traveled across the sky the way men travel across the earth, just because the color truly did seem fit for divinities. Under the heavy burden of all this beauty, she felt as if she were reeling in her saddle, and at times tears ran down her face, just from the loveliness. Once as they rode through a meadow, a pair of larks broke cover and flew, singing their heartbreaking trill as they went up and up into the azure, crystalline sky, their wings rushing and beating in a tiny thunder. Jill saw then that whatever else might happen, that moment, that beating of wings, that stripe of sound would all endure eternally, as indeed would every moment, a clear note in the unfolding music of the universe. When she tried to tell Perryn of the insight, he only stared at her and told her she was daft. She laughed, agreeing with him.

That afternoon, they camped early near a good-sized stream. Perryn took a line and hook from his gear, remarked that he was after fish, and wandered away upstream. For a long time Jill lay on the bank and stared into the water, watching the Wildfolk in the eddies, a white foam of little faces, traces of sleek bodies, little voices and lives, melding and blending into each other. It seemed that there was something that they wanted of her, and finally she stripped off her clothes and joined them. Giggling, laughing, she ducked and splashed in the water with the undines, tried to catch them as they swam away from her, and for the first time she heard them clearly, giggling in return, calling out her name, Jill, Jill, Jill, over and over again. Then suddenly they shrieked and disappeared. Jill turned in the water and looked up to see Perryn, standing on the bank with a string of three trout in one hand. Her heart sank, just as when a pupil looks up from a game to find her tutor glaring with a piece of unfinished work in his hand.

Yet when she clambered up onto the bank, he was far from angry with her, catching her, kissing her, wrapping her round with his desire until she wanted him, too, and lay down willingly with him in the grass. Afterward, he got up, dressed, and methodically began cleaning the fish, but she lay naked in the soft grass and tried to remember the name of the man she once had loved and who, or so she suspected, still loved her. Although she could see his face in her mind, her memory refused to give up his name. Puzzling over it, she got up and dressed, then chanced to look down at the stream. The Wildfolk were back, staring at her reproachfully.

“Rhodry, Jill,” they whispered. “How could you have forgotten your Rhodry?”

She doubled over and wept, sobbing aloud. When Perryn came rushing to comfort her, she shoved him away so hard that he tripped and fell. Like a frightened animal she ran, racing through the long grass of the clearing, plunging into the forest, only to catch an ankle on a root and sprawl headlong. For a moment she lay there panting, seeing how dark the trees were, how menacingly they reached down to grab her. Now they looked like a line of armed guards, raising weapons high. When he came to fetch her back, she went without arguing.

That evening he built a fire and skewered the trout on green sticks to roast them. Jill ate a few bites, but the food seemed to stick in her month, the fish suddenly as cloying as pure honey. Perryn, however, wolfed down his share as if he were starving, then fell asleep by the fire. She watched him for a long time. Although it would have been ridiculously easy to kill him, the memory of the forest stopped her. If he died, she would be alone, trapped out there, starving, wandering in circles, growing more and more panicked—with the last of her will she wrenched her mind away from the thoughts that were threatening to turn her hysterical. Shaking, suddenly cold, she stared into the fire, where the spirits were forming and falling in the flames, dancing along the wood that this pair of humans had so thoughtfully provided. Jill could almost hear them talking in the hiss and crackle. Then a log burned through and fell with a shower of golden sparks. In the rushy dance of flame, a proper face appeared, golden and shifting. When it spoke, it was in a true voice, and one with authority.

“What is this, child? What’s so wrong?”

“Wrong?” She could barely stammer. “Is it?”

For a moment the face regarded her; then it was gone. Somewhat bewildered, unable to think, Jill lay down next to Perryn and fell asleep.

As formless as water, the days slipped into one another. Jill couldn’t count them; she’d lost the very idea of counting, as if the part of her mind that dealt with things like nights and coins had fallen out of her saddlebags and gotten lost in the grass. Whenever he spoke to her, it was hard to answer, because her words became lost in the splendor of the forest, Fortunately he rarely spoke, apparently contented with her silent presence near him. At night, when they made camp, he was an eager lover, wanting her in their blankets often before they’d eaten, then bringing her dinner like a page as she lay drowsily by the fire. His slow hesitance, his shuffling walk, his vague smiles and stumbling words—all were gone. He was all laughter and calm efficiency, all strength and life as he strode through the wild country. She supposed that his daft mousiness was simply a shield he put up when he was forced to live in the lands of men.

She was proven right when they rode into a village to buy food at the open market. Perryn became his old self, looking aimlessly this way and that, stumbling through every simple sentence as he haggled for cheese and peaches, for loaves of bread from the baker. Since Jill could speak no more clearly than he could, she was of no help to him. Once she saw a farmer’s wife watching them in puzzlement, as if she were wondering how a pair of halfwits like they could survive on the road.

With the shopping done, they went to a tiny tavern for ale. After nothing but spring water to drink, the ale tasted so good that Jill savored every sip. Although the little room had dirty straw on the floor, an unswept hearth, and battered tables, she was happy there. It was good to see other people, her own kind, good to listen to human voices instead of the endless wind through the forest and the chatter of streams. A balding stout fellow, wearing the checked brigga of a merchant, gave her a friendly smile.

“Here, lass,” he said. “Why do you carry a silver dagger?”

“Oh, ah, er, well,” Jill said. “My father was a silver dagger, you see. It’s a reminder of him.”

“A pious gesture, truly.”

Jill had the sudden startling experience of hearing him think: A pretty lass, but stupid; ah well, wits don’t matter in a lass. The thought was as clear in her mind as if he’d spoken aloud, but she decided that she was only deluding herself. When it was time to leave the tavern, she wept, simply because they were going back to the lonely wilderness.