Forest Mage (83 page)

She halted for an instant and then stumped her way down to the stream, complaining as she went, “And that is probably the only thing you could have said that would make me instantly forgive you, no matter how much you deserve to endure my disdain and contempt for, well, at least months! Oh, how lovely! It’s beautiful, here.” She pushed through the foliage of a bush and emerged onto the mossy banks of a stream.

“It is. I’m surprised that you can see that through the fear.” Something else caught my attention. “Epiny. Do you see the berries on that bush? The one we just passed?”

“I do.” She ventured closer. “They’re lovely. Such a rich color.”

“Do you think there is any way you could pick some and bring them to me in the jail?”

“I’ve nothing to carry them in except my handkerchief.” She walked past them to the stream. She sank down carefully onto the moss. She dipped the handkerchief she had just mentioned into the water and wiped perspiration from her brow and the back of her neck before cupping some water in her hand to drink. All the while, she never let go of my phantom hand pinned to her shoulder. “When I get back to town, I can buy you some berries at the market if you wish.”

“Not like those,” I told her. A faint but tantalizing scent wafted to my ghost nose. My mouth watered, and my suppressed appe
tite woke with a roar. “It’s a special sort of berry. They facilitate magic.”

“Really?” She stood up slowly and went back to the bush. “Such an unusual color,” she said. She picked one. And before I could utter a sound of warning, she ate it. I felt her consume it. “Oh, my! I’ve never tasted anything like that!”

“Epiny, stop! Stop!” Her hand hovered over another berry. “I’m afraid if you eat them, the magic will gain more power over you. Don’t eat anymore.”

With just the one berry, I sensed a change in her. She did as well. She gripped my hand now, not her own shoulder. Some of her weariness had fallen away. Tree Woman was right, I realized. Epiny did have an aptitude for their magic. I recalled what Epiny had told me so long ago in Old Thares: that once a medium had shown her how to open herself to magic, she had felt it was a window inside her that she could not close.

“They’re so delicious,” she murmured. She picked a second berry.

“Epiny! No!”

“Just one more. It made me feel stronger.” It was already in her mouth. I knew the moment she crushed it, for I felt a surge of magic wash through her.

“Epiny! For the sake of Spink’s child, stop now! You cannot use this magic without it taking something from you. You’ve read my journal. Let me tell you what isn’t in there, what I didn’t have time to record. This magic, it grows in odd ways. You’ll use it without meaning to. I made Carsina a walker! I forced that on her, by my foolish words spoken in anger at Rosse’s wedding. I was too ashamed to tell Spink what I’d done to her. Carsina came back from the dead, forced to do what I’d cursed her with. I forced her to go on her knees and beg my forgiveness before she could die.”

“Oh, the good god’s mercy!” Epiny leaned over and spat. It was too late; I knew she had absorbed the berry’s potency already. But the simple act showed me that she had the strength of will I’d lacked. She took a breath, and then straightened. “Show me the way home, Nevare.”

“Pick the berries for me, Epiny. Even a kerchief full will restore some of my power.” I felt tantalizingly more substantial. The smell of the two berries she’d eaten was on her breath. I longed to devour every one that remained on the bush.

“But you said they’d put me in the magic’s power,” she protested. “Won’t they do the same to you?”

“I’m already in the magic’s power. If you can get them to me in the prison, I may be able to rejuvenate enough magic to be able to help myself. Then you won’t have to.”

“But—”

“I’ve already given Lisana my word. Pick the berries for me, Epiny.”

She stood a long time considering it. Then she spread her handkerchief on the moss and began, one-handed, to pick berries and drop them on it. When she had a goodly pile, she gathered up the four corners of her kerchief and picked it up.

“The way home?” she asked me again.

I made a decision. “Going home the way you came is far too long. Follow this stream,” I told her. “It has to flow downhill. It will take you closer to the end of the road. From there, I think you can beg aid of the men working there. They’ll put you on a cart and get you home.”

It was a long and weary walk for her. The berries, she told me, seemed to have calmed the fear in her and lent her strength. Even so, my heart ached for her. She’d had the sense to put on boots before she stole the horse and cart, but her heavy skirts were scarcely the best hiking garb. I greatly feared that night would fall before we were out of the forest. I wondered if I’d misjudged the way until we heard the muted sounds of axes falling and smelled the smoke of burning brush. “We’re nearly there,” I said quietly. “All you have to do is go toward the sounds. The men working on the road will help you.”

Her response was as subdued. “She took me to the end of the ridge and made me look down on what we had done to her forest. I don’t pretend to understand completely what the ancestor trees mean to her. But for that moment, I felt what she felt, and my heart actually went out to her, Nevare. Different as we are, I
still understood that all she wants is to keep things as they are, to protect her people.”

“But we both know that things never remain as they are, Epiny. It’s a lost cause already.”

“Perhaps. But I’ve already said that I’d stop them from cutting the ancestor trees. Do you know exactly what they are?”

“I think that when a Great One dies, the Specks give the body to a tree. And that the tree absorbs the body, and somehow that person lives on as a tree.”

“That’s what Tree Woman is? Lisana?”

“I think so. We’ve never discussed it directly. There are so many things that she assumes I know, and—”

“But that’s horrible! We’re literally killing their elders when we cut those trees! By the good god’s mercy! No wonder they think we’re monsters! Nevare, when you went to Colonel Haren, you should have told him what those trees were! If only he had known!”

“Epiny. I know you’ve read my journal. I did go to Colonel Haren, the morning before the Dust Dance. I told him what those trees meant to the Specks and even warned him that if the cutting did not stop, we’d be facing a different kind of war.

“He dismissed my concern, and said that he thought less of me for having it. He’d heard it before. He saw it as silly superstitious nonsense, and said that once the trees were gone and nothing bad happened to the Specks, they’d see they’d been foolish and come around to our way of thinking. It was as if he believed that if we took their culture away from them, they’d instantly convert to thinking like Gernians. As if our way of seeing the world were the only real one, and that anyone, given the opportunity, would think like we do. I couldn’t make him see any other point of view. Even if I’d told him that the trees were actually the Specks’ ancestors, he’d have been unable to believe me. But, yes, we knew those trees were sacred to the Specks. We’ve evidently known it for a long time. And we keep trying to cut through there anyway.”

“We’ve been fools! Couldn’t someone, for just a moment, have believed the Specks knew the secrets of their forest better
than we did? We’ve brought all this on ourselves! The fear, the despair, the Speck plague! It’s all our own doing.”

“I wouldn’t go that far—” I started to say, but she interrupted me.

“So what did you try, then, to stop the cutting?”

“I—well, that is, what else could I do? I told the colonel and pleaded with him to stop it. He refused.”

“Well, you should have done something more!”

“Perhaps I could have, if I’d had time. But on my way home, your friend Hoster’s men shot me.”

“He thought you were a murderer,” she said. She sounded angry and embarrassed.

“I still can’t believe you trusted that man!” I retorted. She stopped and looked up at me, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

“You should just say it and get it over with, Nevare. It’s my fault that you’re in that cell facing death. I betrayed you. I’m so sorry! So sorry.”

“Oh, Epiny, I didn’t mean it that way! You didn’t betray me. All you did was what you thought you should do, keep faith with a man you trusted. And maybe by his own lights, he was a good man. If he believed me such a monster and a threat to the women of the town, then maybe he was justified in sending those men after me. It’s all about what we believe, isn’t it? Not just Gernians and Specks, but even down to individuals like Hoster and you. All we can do is what we think is right, driven by what we know, or what we think we know.”

“Nonetheless, I feel it was my fault. And that was why I had to go to the forest today. To do whatever I could, at any cost, to free you from that cell.” She was no longer meeting my eyes. She trudged on. The forest brush was getting thicker. She pushed her way through.

“Epiny, you don’t have to do anything more.” The ringing of axes came louder now. I could see the sunlight at the edge of the clearing ahead and smell the drifting smoke of the burning slash piles. The work crews were close. “Just get yourself safely home.
And if there is any way you can get those berries to me, please do that. And then stay away from whatever happens next, knowing you’ve done your best.”

“Would you go back on your given word, Nevare?” Her hair had tangled in a bush. She stopped and made an exasperated sound as she pulled it free.

“Of course not!”

“Then how can you suggest that I do that? I told Lisana that I’d do whatever I could to save the ancestor trees. I intend to keep my word.”

“Epiny, I don’t think that Major Helford is going to give you any more credence than Colonel Haren gave me. Less, because you’re a woman.”

“Such a comforting thing to say to me, Nevare!” I could sense her anger coming to a boil and felt helpless to stop it. I feared that when it bubbled over, we would all be scalded.

“Epiny, what can you do?”

She halted. We could hear men’s voices ahead of us. I felt a sudden bolt of fear. I’d brought her here assuming that the work crews would offer her help. What if they didn’t? What if they abused her?

“I shouldn’t have brought you this way, Epiny. Most of the men on these crews are prisoners. And their guards don’t strike me as much better.”

“Actually, I think this is the best way you could have guided me, Nevare. It will give me the opportunity to see how they are working, and where, and what they are using. That is information that will help me stop them.”

She was patting her hair back into order and brushing at her skirts as she spoke. She was tidying herself, I realized, before she walked out to meet the work crew.

“Epiny, what can you possibly do to stop them?” I asked in a low voice.

“I was thinking explosives,” she replied brightly. “I’ve heard they’ve been using them to fell trees. Perhaps they’d work to make them
stop
felling trees.”

“Oh, the good god’s mercy on us all! Epiny, let that idea go. All you’ll do is succeed at hurting yourself or others. Where would you get explosives, anyway?”

She turned and gave me a sly smile. “Have you forgotten? My husband is in charge of supply.”

Then she lifted her hand from mine. All around me, the forest sparkled unbearably and then dissolved into floating dust. A moment later, I was staring up at the ceiling of my cell. I groaned and covered my eyes.

T
hey woke me early on the day of my trial. I was given a basin of warm water and a rag to wash myself. When I thanked the guard, he told me gruffly, “It’s for the benefit of the court, not you!”

The water was filthy long before I finished. Just the caked blood from the side of my head had turned it a rusty brown. I wished for a mirror, then was glad I didn’t have one. My hair and my whiskers had grown out. I hadn’t changed my clothing since the day I’d awakened in the cell. Grave earth still smudged my knees, and my own blood stained my shirt and jacket. The cuffs of my trousers seemed to have picked up some very real burrs and thorns on my dreamwalk. I’d lost weight, but not in the way of a man who had worked it off. My flesh hung slack on my body; my
face sagged. I suspected that many people would flock to my trial expecting to see a monster. Thanks to my confinement, I would look the part.

The last two days had been an agony of suspense. No one had come to talk with me. I didn’t know if Spink was too furious or too busy trying to collect evidence in my favor. In the long lonely hours that had passed since I had “returned” to my cell, my emotions had peaked and fallen in an endless series of waves. Lisana had said that if I did what the magic wished, I’d be saved. I’d promised to do anything. But the magic had not asked anything of me. I’d sat, idle and hopeless, waiting for something to happen. I tried to feel some spark, some turmoil in my blood to suggest that the magic had not abandoned me. There had been nothing. If the magic had given me a task, I didn’t know what it was. Nothing and no one could save me now. It was time to meet my fate like a soldier.

Spink arrived by midmorning. When I heard his step in the corridor, I went to the window of my cell. Over one arm, he carried my spare uniform, freshly mended, washed, and pressed. The glint in his eyes warned me that he was still angry over my earlier comments about Epiny. What I had to say to him today would please him even less, I thought. I might have only one chance to bring up that topic.

So I greeted him with, “Epiny plans to use explosives to stop the road crews from cutting the Specks’ ancestor trees.”

He stopped dead and stared at me. Then he turned to the guard who had been outside my range of vision. “Bring this man more water and a razor! He cannot be presented to the court this way. We have the dignity of these proceedings to consider.”

“Sir, he may do himself an injury with a razor.”

“And how much would the court care about that? Less, I think, then having an unshaven bumpkin presented to them as a soldier facing trial. Corporal, this is still our regiment. Doubtless this man will exit it one way or another in the next few days. Let’s have him leave looking somewhat like a soldier, shall we?”

“Yes, sir,” was the daunted response. I listened to the scuff of his boots as he left.

Outside my door, Spink gave a sudden sigh. “I shall hope I can pass your greeting off as lunatic raving. How are you feeling?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I did. I hope the guard thought it was gibberish. And you obviously expect me to be surprised by it. Nevare, it grieves me that you don’t understand at all the depth of love and trust that exists between Epiny and me. You think she has concealed this from me, don’t you?”

I was left speechless. It had been inconceivable to me that Epiny would go home and confide her intentions to Spink. He was right. I had had no concept of the strength of the connection between them. But when I replied to him, I spoke to something else. “That isn’t the only reason you’re furious with me, is it?”

He spoke tightly. “No. It’s not. In a very short time, Nevare, after you’ve gone to the trouble to shave and wash and put on your best uniform, we will walk under guard to the courtroom, where you will face seven men all intent on condemning you to a vile death. I’ll put on a mimicry of a defense, not because that is my intent but because I literally have nothing to work with. After that, they’ll condemn you. And tomorrow, as your friend, I’ll watch you hanged. Then Epiny and Amzil and I will bury you. We’ve already decided that it’s better that the children not attend any of this. It would scar them for the rest of their lives. We’ll allow them to pray for you at home.”

Slow tears formed in his eyes. He ignored them when they began to roll down his cheeks. He stood very straight, stiff as a soldier facing deadly fire. And as brave, I thought to myself. I tried to find a gentle way to ask my next question. “You’ll keep Epiny safe, won’t you? You won’t allow her to do anything to endanger herself?”

His voice choked. “I’m afraid I already have. She’s been in bed since she was brought home after her little stroll in the woods. She had—that is, we feared she was going to lose the baby. The doctor says her situation is still grave, but that if she stays in bed, she may still carry the child to term. Such is our hope.” He took a deep shuddering breath. “For a short time, I feared I would lose Epiny and our child, as well as you. I’ve had
a very dark three days, Nevare. I know I should have come to see you and consult with you on your defense. But it all felt so hopeless.”

“It is hopeless for me, Spink. But if you keep Epiny home and safe and she gives you a healthy child, well, then, that is hope enough for me. Don’t think you have to watch my execution. In truth, I think I could bear it better knowing that you were not there. Please.”

He’d gone paler. “Military laws demand it. I’ll be there, Nevare. Epiny wanted to be at your trial today. Only the threat of losing her baby kept her at home. Amzil is taking care of her. If there is an opportunity for her to testify on your behalf, I’ll send a runner for her. It was very difficult to convince Epiny that there was nothing she could contribute to your defense without putting you in deeper water. I’ve been grateful for her weakness in one way—at least I know she won’t be running off to explode things.” He took a breath and then asked wistfully, “Is there no chance the magic will save you?”

How peculiar the world had become. A year and a half ago, we would have mocked such a fantastic idea. Now we both tried to cling to it as a last hope. I had to shake my head. “It’s gone, Spink. I haven’t felt even a tingle of it.” I did not add that with Epiny unable to fulfill her end of the bargain, I had no chance at all. I would die tomorrow, her bargain with the magic would be broken, and its ability to manipulate her would be gone.

Spink spoke suddenly in an official voice. “Ah. Here are your water and razor.”

The guard commanded me to stand well back from the door as he entered to give me the fresh water, a mirror, soap, and a razor. Spink passed in my clean uniform. Then they withdrew while I made myself presentable. I wadded up my filthy clothes and tossed them in the corner with the pan of dirty water. Not much chance I’d need to worry about having spare clothing anymore.

The mirror showed me that I looked even worse than I had supposed. Haggard would have been an understatement. I cleaned myself as best I could, shaved, and then got dressed. The many-seamed uniform that Amzil had sewn for me hung oddly on my
reduced frame. When I heard Spink and my guard returning, I stood straight awaiting them.

They both peered into my cell through the barred window. The guard’s eyes widened. Even Spink looked rather impressed. “You look a lot more like the soldier I know you are,” Spink observed. The guard made a derisive sound, but when Spink turned on him, he pretended to have been clearing his throat.

“Shall we go?” Spink asked me.

The guard shook his head. “Sir, we’re to await an armed escort for the prisoner. They should be here shortly.”

“Do they truly think I’m going to try to escape?” I almost laughed. “What would be the use of that? I’d still be inside the walls of the fort.”

They were both silent for a moment. Then Spink said unwillingly, “The armed guard will be protecting you on the way to the courtroom, soldier. Feeling has run very high against you. There have been threats.”

“Oh.” Cold washed through me. The studied calm that I’d been practicing for the last two days suddenly cracked. This was real. This was now. I’d step out into sunlight, walk a short distance, and then stand before seven men who would condemn me to death. My legs felt weak, and I was suddenly terrified that I would faint. “No!” I forbade myself in a low rough voice, and the vertigo passed.

“While there is life, there is hope,” Spink said suddenly. I heard the cadenced tramp of feet at the end of the hall. I recalled my resolution. They would be armed. If the opportunity presented itself, I would make a run for it. I could force them to kill me. I just had to find the right moment and the nerve to act. I had to be ready.

The men they’d sent to escort me were brawny fellows. The sergeant was half a head taller than me, and his steely gaze left no doubt that he’d happily shoot me down if I ran. I primed him for it, meeting his stare with an insolent smile. They formed up their patrol around me. Just when I thought fate had finally smiled on me, the sergeant produced a set of leg irons. As he went down on one knee to fasten them tightly above my ankles, he observed, “We
promised the ladies of the town that there would be no chance you’d escape trial and the death that you deserve.”

Having my solution yanked so neatly away from me paralyzed my thoughts for an instant. He clamped the iron cuffs tightly around my legs, just above the bones of my ankles. “He’s too damn fat for the irons!” he observed with a guffaw, and then crimped them tight enough to make them latch anyway. I cried out in pain and anger as the iron crushed the tissue of my calves, but he latched the second one anyway.

“They’re too tight!” I complained. “I won’t be able to walk.”

“Your own damn fault for being so fat,” he observed. “Let’s go.”

It was only when he was once more standing beside me that it occurred to me that I should have kicked him while he was down. If I tried to escape now, all I would earn myself was a severe beating rather than the bullets in the back I’d anticipated. Another opportunity lost.

The patrol stepped out smartly around me and I trudged in their midst, taking quick short steps in a futile effort to keep up with them. The leg irons bit instantly and painfully. In three steps I was limping. I awkwardly double-stepped up a short flight of stairs. By the time the outside door of the prison was flung open and the harsh sunlight assaulted my eyes, the pain was such that I could think of nothing else. “I can’t walk,” I told them, and the man behind me gave me a firm shove in the back. When I tottered and nearly fell, they laughed. I jerked my head up and looked around me as I minced painfully on. Beside me, Spink’s face was scarlet with fury, his mouth held so tight that his lips were pinched white. I caught a quick sideways glance from him, steeled myself to the pain, and walked on.

The short walk from my cell to the building where I would be tried was a gantlet of mockery. The only other time I’d seen the streets of Gettys so packed with people had been right before the Dust Dance. The crowd surged forward at the sight of me. A woman I had never seen before screeched the foulest invective I’ve ever heard before falling to the ground in a sort of hysteria as we passed. Someone shouted, “Hanging’s too good for you!” and threw a rotten potato. It struck the guard next to me and he
cried out angrily. This seemed to incite the mob, for a veritable fusillade of rotten produce was launched at me. I saw a ripe plum bounce off Spink. He kept walking, eyes straight ahead. The sergeant roared at the crowd to “Give way, give way!” and they reluctantly let us pass. The pain from my chained ankles vied with the flood of hatred that rolled out from the mob.

The courtroom was stuffy. I shuffled up a short flight of steps to the prisoner’s box. A solid half-wall topped with iron bars separated me from the spectators but permitted all the gawkers a good view. Below and in front of me, Spink sat alone at a table, a small stack of papers before him. Opposite, at a larger table, sat a captain and two lieutenants. Behind them, seated on benches, an assortment of witnesses waited impatiently to testify against me. Captain Thayer, Captain Gorling, and Clara Gorling were seated in a special section. My seven judges sat at a high table on a dais in the center of the room. A line of guards held back the mob that had surged in to watch the proceedings. Folk who could not crowd into the room peered in through the windows. I thought I caught a glimpse of Ebrooks, but when I turned my head, he was gone. Other than that, the only soul I recognized was Spink.

I stood still and straight and tried to ignore the agony of the iron clamped tight into my flesh. I could feel blood seeping down my left ankle. My right foot buzzed and went numb.

The proceedings began with a lengthy reading of a document that said that the military would conduct my trial, and in the event that I was found guilty, the town of Gettys would have authority over my punishment for crimes against the citizens of Gettys. I listened to it through a haze of pain. We were momentarily allowed to sit down. Then we had to stand again for an extended prayer to the good god that asked him to help the judges to fearlessly render justice and condemn evil. I could barely stand upright for the wave of red pain washing up through me; my ears rang with it. When we were finally allowed to be seated, I leaned forward to explain my discomfort to Spink, but the officer in charge of the proceedings commanded me to silence.

I sat, agony rippling up from my legs, and tried to listen to the testimony against me. The officer in charge listed my misdeeds.
The charges began with my rape of Fala, moved on to her murder and my subsequent concealment of the crime, my assaulting of respectable women on the streets of Gettys, and my poisoning of the men who had managed to claim my horse’s harness as evidence against me and finally reached a crescendo with a long list of my supposed crimes the night Carsina had walked into my cabin. One woman fainted when the words “necrophiliac depredations’ were uttered. Captain Thayer lowered his face into his hands. Clara Gorling stared at me with the purest hatred. Witness after witness spoke against me as I endured the silent torture of my leg irons. Once I leaned down to touch them, to try to shift them on my compressed flesh, and the judge shouted at me to sit straight and show some respect for the court.