Longeye (38 page)

"I don't doubt. Yet this matter lies close to you, does it not? The Brethren are the children of the
keleigh
. What will happen to you and your kin, if the
keleigh
is struck down?"

"The mists are hungry," the Brethren observed. "Brethren taste as good as High Fey." He blinked his sun-yellow eyes at Becca. "Or Newmen."

"So it is decided," Meri said with feigned briskness. "I will lead and shape our path, because I know the court and the chamber. Little Brother, you will come after, and Becca at the last."

She stared at him, her heart suddenly tight. "But—what if I lose the Brethren in the mist?"

"You may," Meri admitted, and gave her a tight smile. "But you will not lose me. The sunshield will see to that, eh?"

Becca blinked. She had forgotten about the sunshield, and was not at all sure that she cared to be reminded of it—especially when it was offered as a source of comfort.

"Very well, then," she said, grudgingly. "I will follow the Brethren." She glanced at the tunnel and away again, her stomach profoundly unsettled. "And I will hope that this trip is not a long one."

The garden had undergone a . . . change, Altimere noted. Somewhat alarmed, he looked about him, cataloging orderly groups of flowers and greenery, some beds lying fallow, while others bloomed with full enthusiasm, and yet others showed browning leaves, or tender stalks just beginning to put forth their first shy leafling.

And there! The so-called
wheel garden
his Rebecca had nattered on about in her artless way. Here, more than any other place in the garden, could be seen the progression from birth to decay—one quarter of the wheel in exuberant bloom; its opposite quarter lying brown. One quarter carpeted with pale sprouts; and the last quarter showing some browned edges and nodding blooms.

Altimere took a breath, somewhat . . . dismayed . . . by this display of order. The garden at Artifex, of course, grew to his specifications, and in accordance with his will. This—this had been designed and carried out by a will both focused and powerful. It seemed unlikely that the plants had banded themselves together to produce this effect, though one could never be entirely certain with regard to the whims of plants.

The trees, now . . . But the trees of Xandurana had previously been content to let their small-kin proliferate as they would.

It was, to be sure, a puzzle. Altimere bent his attention once more to the
wheel garden
, noticing in particular a pale pink flower peeking out from its glossy, overlarge leaves, like a coquette from behind her fan. Quite apart from its pleasing aspect, it seemed to glow, not with a plant's usual small aura, but with a knife's edge of pure white light. Bending, Altimere extended a hand—and pulled it back as he encountered heat.

"Well," he murmured. "And was it you who burned my pretty child's hands?"

The plant made no answer, and after a moment, Altimere walked on, to the bench near the elitch, where he seated himself.

It came to him then that the Gossamers had been an uncommon while in fetching Rebecca and the artifact. Well. It must be expected that whoever had broken the necklace would set powerful wards about his newly acquired treasure. But the artifact—surely there would be no need to protect
it
, even if it had been taken to placate and serve Rebecca.

Altimere closed his eyes. The breeze was light and pleasant against his face, scented agreeably by the abundant flowers. He would rather, he thought, know the location and estate of all of his pieces before he made challenge. However, he felt that he could not tarry long. It would soon, if it had not already, come to the attention of those who made it their business to know, that he had returned. And at that point—

A gong sounded, seeming to rise up from the Vaitura itself. It reverberated in his chest, became one with the beat of his heart.

Altimere, seated on the bench beneath the elitch in his garden at Xandurana, sighed lightly.

Time was short, indeed. Shorter by far than he had imagined.

Diathen the Bookkeeper Queen had summoned the Constant.

It
was
a rabbit-hole, Becca thought despairingly, feeling her way through the fog. She could see nothing, and it was as if the mist had gotten into her ears and stopped them up, for all the sound she could hear from ahead. Her shoulders rubbed the sides of the tunnel as she crawled on, praying that the mist hadn't gotten into Meri's head and fuddled his sense of their destination, willing with every fiber that the journey would end soon—preferably before she was reduced to wriggling on her belly like a worm.

As if in answer to her petitions, the tunnel widened somewhat, the moist dirt beneath her hands becoming drier. She thought that the mist was thinning, and surely—
surely
that was the Brethren ahead of her, tufted tail twitching from side to side?

A picture was growing inside of her head: a picture of a room she had never seen, and yet knew in intimate detail. A circular room it was, grown within the largest tree in Xandurana. There was nothing here of artifice, not so much as a rug, or a cushion; only the living wood. A chair grew at the center of the room. Around the edges tier on tier of benches grew. The room was illuminated with a deep green light, as if the tree had dedicated its aura to this purpose.

Becca crawled on, the room becoming clearer and more precise in her mind's eyes. She barely noticed that the mist had lifted entirely; scarcely heeded the moment that she came to her feet and walked out onto the living floor.

Meri was looking about him, the Brethren crouched at his feet, horns held at the defensive, though what it defended against, Becca hardly knew. The circular room was empty.

Or—not quite empty.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pale flash, as if an errant curl of mist had followed them out of the rabbit-hole.

Then, they were around her—tentacles gripping arms and waist.

"No!" she cried to the Gossamers. "Release me at once!"

Altimere sipped his wine without tasting it. It was senseless to pretend that the summons had not touched him, or, in doing so, left him unmoved. Yet, he assured himself, forcing himself to sip again, as if there might be a witness to his leisure—it had been but the first call. He had—

"No," he murmured, the summons ringing yet in his very marrow. "No, I am in error. That was the
second
call."

He closed his eyes, and bent his head, listening to the pleasant sound of the breeze among the leaves. How different from—and infinitely preferable to—the muffling of the vexed mists! He must make it a point to sit in the garden more often.

So, then. Another breath. He, a high-ranking member of the Constant, was in receipt of the Queen's second call. Very well. He needn't present himself until the third call had gone out. He might yet recover his missing game pieces. If he did not . . .

The wind whipped briefly. There was a
fwump
of displaced air, followed by a scream composed more, he judged, of frustration than fear.

Altimere raised his head, and considered the various parts of the apparition before him.

"You are tardy," he said to the Gossamers, "but successful. Leave us."

The alacrity with which they obeyed that order might have been amusing had he any attention to spare. As it was, his attention was wholly focused on the vision before him, twigs tangled in her hair, mud streaking her face, and dirt beneath her fingernails.

Art and artifice!
he thought, keeping a firm grip on both his glass and his countenance. Was it possible that she had become even
more
desirable?

"You have no hold on me," she said sharply, and, ah, look! See the shimmers of anger and dismay punctuate the flow of blue-green and gold! Wholly enchanting. But, he was boorish. His Rebecca deserved better of him.

"In fact," he said gently, "we are bound by several threads. We have shared
kest
on numerous occasions, and while I do not hold your name, I know it." He raised his glass and sipped, watching her over the rim. She met his eyes—not without a flinch, but neither with that childlike naïveté to which he had been accustomed. Something had changed his Rebecca. How . . . interesting.

"The strongest thread that binds us,
zinchessa
, is that of teacher and student. For you must admit that I taught you . . . much."

"You taught me much," she agreed. "And all of it false. I reject you." She turned.

He raised a hand, murmuring a word—there came another explosion of displaced air, and—

"Meri, no!" Rebecca cried.

Meri shaped his image of the Queen's Hall with deliberate care, being most especially certain not to people it with any of the folk he might have expected to find there during his unhappy youth. He crept along the thin, dank tunnel on his hands and knees, his attention—his
belief
—on that fearsome chamber. He gazed upon it until his head was full of nothing else, then pushed the reality of the room ahead of him, a single step ahead of him, until all at once the tunnel gave up its game. Meri stood, and walked onto the floor.

Who comes?
The voice of the tree which encompassed this chamber rang in his head like a bell.

Meripen Vanglelauf, Ranger. Rebecca Beauvelley, Gardener. A Low Fey. We bear news of interest to the Queen.

Who
else
comes?
the tree demanded, and Meri blinked, looking about him for perhaps the first of the arriving members of—

"No!" Becca shouted. "Release me at once!"

He spun, saw her attackers, and jumped forward, though what he meant to accomplish he could not have said.

As it happened, his intentions were of no matter. Tentacle-wrapt, Becca vanished, her voice chopped off in mid-complaint, her abductors leaving a spangle of
kest
on the wind of their departure.

"Where have they taken her?" he demanded, and threw his thought wide, calling out to all the trees of the city:
The Gardener has been taken. Where?

For a heartbeat—two—there was no answer. He held himself still, recruiting patience, aware of the Brethren growling at his knee.

She is here
, an elitch said suddenly.
In my garden.

Show me!
Meri sent, feeling a tug, and hearing a sound, as if the surf were pounding out a storm against the land.

The Queen's Hall snapped out of existence; there was a moment of breathless tumbling, as if he had been caught in treacherous seas, then a boom.

He crashed to his knees among flowers, his sight confused, and Becca's voice crying out.

"Meri, no!"

He shook his head, and came to his feet, turning to face her.

"This is hardly my preferred method of travel," he told her, and then took in her pale face, and the thrill of her fear. "Becca?"

"Run!" she cried.

"But how rude in a guest," another voice commented in the ornate accents of an earlier time. Chilled, Meri turned to face the third occupant of the garden.

He sat at his ease on a stone bench beneath the elitch tree, a wineglass held negligently in one long, white hand. Hooded amber eyes considered him with a coolness belied by the bands of crimson that marred his mauve and cream aura. Excepting those telltale signs of passion, he looked much as he had when Meri had last seen him.

Altimere the artificer.

"Rebecca, have you brought me a Wood Wise to replace Elyd?" he asked, languidly. "How very kind in you." He sipped from his glass, then held it out. A tentacled creature darted from somewhere to pluck it out of his fingers and bore it away up the path to the house.

"I have not
brought
you
a Wood Wise," Becca very nearly snarled. "Meri, please leave."

"I don't believe I can," he told her truthfully, and saw her understand that with a horrified shake of her head. "Perhaps if we both left together?" he suggested.

"I am afraid I cannot allow that," Altimere said, sternly. He rose, and shook out his lace, giving Meri another glance. "No, that I
certainly
cannot," he murmured. "The child brings me not merely a Wood Wise, but
a hero
." He inclined his head, ironically.

"Be welcome, Longeye."

Ridiculous, Meri thought, that it was gentle words of hospitality that finally woke his own fear, and brought him to a sense of where he stood. He took a breath, and did not allow dismay to stain his aura, while hoping ardently that Becca's control continued.

Regally, he inclined his head. "Altimere, I thank you for your welcome. Alas, I am wanted in the house of my cousin, and Miss Beauvelley, as well. Let us come to you again when we are all more at leisure."

"We are not so pressed as that," Altimere purred. "The second call has only just gone out." He smiled, his aura only a creamy swirl. "Indeed, we shall enter the Queen's Hall together."

"No," Becca said, her voice shaking with the effort of courtesy. "Altimere, we must make ready. Surely you know . . ."

"Rebecca," the Elder interrupted, turning away from Meri as if he had forgotten his existence—"Rebecca, you must allow me to compliment you on your growth! Not only a lovely aura, but as plump of
kest
as— But what is this?"

He paused, amber eyes narrowing, and looked to Meri frowningly.

"Hero Longeye, this were my property."

Meri felt a jolt of anger—his
and
Becca's, doubtless. He felt no surety that it had not stained his aura; certainly Becca displayed a brief, if searing, bolt of crimson. Carefully, he took a deep breath, feeling after the vocabulary of diplomacy.

"Elder Altimere, you are aware of the Queen's Rule. The powerful may no longer subvert the service of those lesser than themselves."

"The Queen's Rule," Altimere said, with a tender smile at Becca. "Do you think the Queen's Rule protects mongrel-Fey, as well? There having been no such creatures when she Spoke, the case might well require argument before the Constant."

"What are you talking about?" Becca asked.

He looked to her, to Meri's eye an amused and tolerant host.