The Last Of The Wilds (14 page)

When he had finished, he lapsed into a glum silence.

“I see,” Emerahl said, for the sake of saying something. She needed time to consider this incredible story. “That is quite a tale.”

“Mirar was right,” he stated firmly. “I endangered my people.”

Emerahl spread her hands. “You were in love.”

“That is no excuse.”

“It is excuse enough. What I don’t understand is… Auraya must have seen Mirar in your mind. Surely this alarmed her.”

“She knew the link memories in my mind had manifested into a personality I would occasionally converse with. She did not believe Mirar truly existed. She never observed him taking control.”

“I can understand her wanting to believe that. Love makes us tolerate things we might not normally stand for. Juran, surely, would not have accepted it.”

Leiard shrugged. “He did. Perhaps only because I was useful to him and Mirar did not show himself capable of taking control until later.”

He obviously didn’t recognize Mirar’s body
, Emerahl thought.
Has Juran’s memory faded that much over the last hundred years? Had Mirar looked so different as to be unrecognizable?
She shuddered as she realized how close Mirar had been to discovery.
The gods must have looked into his mind, perhaps several times, yet they didn’t recognize him. Unless… unless the gods did, but are unconcerned because they know Leiard is the true owner of his body
.

Even so, they would not have approved of this affair between their chosen one and any Dreamweaver. Why did they allow it? Maybe they feared to lose Auraya’s trust and loyalty. Maybe they expected Leiard to confirm their low opinion of Dreamweavers. Auraya may now hate them because of Leiard’s “betrayal.”

She frowned as something else occurred to her. “You say she discovered you with a prostitute, but Mirar was in control. Surely if she hadn’t observed him in control before, she should not have recognized you. Or rather, she should have realized it was him in control—not you.”

He frowned. “I had not considered that. It is… puzzling.”

“Yes. You must be alike enough for her to recognize both of you as the same person,” Emerahl said slowly. “She might have noticed differences given the chance, but at that moment she would have been so shocked by what you had done. She may have decided she didn’t know you as well as she thought.”

“I would not have done what he did,” Leiard stated, a little defensively.

Emerahl regarded him thoughtfully. “No. You are quite unlike Mirar in that regard.”

“Why do you like him when he is so despicable?”

She laughed. “Because he is. He’s a rogue, there’s no denying it. While his morals may be a little questionable, he is a good man.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know that, I think.”

He looked away, frowning. “I know he was once more… restrained when it came to women. I think time made him change. He seeks physical sensation in order to assure himself he is still alive. That he is still a physical being. Not a god.”

She stared at him in surprise, disturbed by what he was suggesting. The gods had accused Mirar of pretending to be a god. Now Leiard believed Mirar behaved as he did to reassure himself he
wasn’t
a god.

“I believe you when you say joining the brothel was necessity,” he added. “You believed the priests were more dangerous than they were. I also wonder if you unknowingly seek the same kind of assurance that Mirar seeks. You seek a reminder that you are a physical being, not a god. Whoring—”

“Mirar,” she commanded. “Break’s over. Come back to me.”

He stiffened, then relaxed. As his gaze focused on her again his eyebrows lowered and he smiled at her slyly.

“I’m a rogue, eh?”

To her surprise, she felt her pulse quicken.
No, that’s no great surprise. Mirar has always been able to stir my blood. It seems he still can, even after all this time. Or perhaps because so much time has passed
.

She could still sense his emotions, however, and could see he was just being playful. Trying to delay her from recalling her real purpose—mind-shielding lessons. She schooled her expression.

“Enough chit-chat,” she said. “I don’t intend to stay in this cave forever, so unless you want to end up stuck here by yourself, eating whatever insects find their way in, you had better get back to work.”

His shoulders sagged. “Oh, all right then.”

The staircase went on forever. Imi’s legs ached, but she set her eyes on her father’s back and pushed herself on, clenching her teeth to stop herself complaining.

He warned me
, she thought.
He said it took hours to climb up to the lookout. Then you have to come all the way down again. Next time I won’t have to come back. Next time I’ll swim away and come back via the Mouth
.

The tunnel echoed with the heavy breathing of the adults. Teiti looked as if she was in pain. The guards, in contrast, appeared to be enjoying themselves. Those that regularly accompanied the king to the lookout were used to the exercise. Those who watched over Imi were enjoying a rare opportunity to visit a place that only a few were allowed to see.

Teiti began to gasp in the way she had each time she had been about to ask for a rest. Imi felt both annoyance and relief. She did not want to stop, she wanted the staircase to end.

“Not long now,” her father tossed over his shoulder.

Her aunt paused, then shrugged and continued on. Imi felt her heart lift with expectation. The next few minutes seemed longer than the hours behind them. Finally her father slowed to a stop. She peered around him to see they had reached a blank wall.

There was no door. Confused, she looked at the others. They were gazing up at the small trapdoor set into the roof.

Her father moved to one side, where an alcove like the ones they had passed on the way up held several pottery bottles of water. He passed them around. Imi splashed water over her skin gratefully, then drank. The water was stale but welcome after the long climb.

She looked up at the trapdoor, noting the rusty iron brackets in the back of the door. A heavy length of wood was propped against a wall nearby. She guessed this would be slipped into the brackets to stop the door opening if raiders found the tunnel.

At a signal from the king a guard reached up and knocked on the trapdoor. She noted the pattern—two quick knocks, three spaced ones, two more rapid ones. The trapdoor lifted. Two armored men peered down at them. Beyond them was the dazzling blue of the sky.

One of the watchers moved away, then returned carrying a ladder. He lowered it into the tunnel. The king sent two guards up first, then climbed it himself. As he stepped off it he peered down at Imi, smiled and beckoned.

She set a foot on the first rung and began to climb. Her sore feet protested after the long walk, but she gritted her teeth against the pain. As she reached the top her father grabbed her waist and hauled her out. She gave a laugh of surprise and pleasure.

Her father made a rueful sound. “You’re getting a bit heavy for that,” he said, rubbing his back. Straightening, he sighed and looked into the distance.

Imi examined her surroundings. She was standing in a dirt-filled space between several huge boulders. They were too high for her to see over. She jumped on the spot, and managed to catch glimpses of sea and horizon.

“Perhaps if I lift her, your majesty?” one of the king’s more robust guards offered.

The king nodded. “Yes. Only so long as you can manage.”

The guard smiled at Imi. “Turn around, Princess.”

She did as he asked and felt his large hands grip her waist. He lifted her up onto one broad shoulder and held her there.

Now she had a better view than anyone else. She could see the edge of the sea all around, she could see the islands of Borra forming a huge ring in the blue water, and she could see the steep rock slope of the island she was standing on stretching down toward a fringe of forest and the white of the beach.

“Can you get to here from the beach?” she asked.

Her father laughed. “Yes, but it would not be easy. The ground is steep and the stony surface is slippery. This peak is sheer smooth rock for a hundred paces on either side. You need ropes and a wall anchor to get up here.”

Imi felt her stomach sink with disappointment. Her plan to bribe and cajole her way up here at night to “admire the stars” then to slip away and run to the beach wasn’t going to work. Yet she was also relieved. It had been a long climb and even if the outside had been as she’d imagined—a gentle slope down to the beach—she’d have been too tired to run.

I’ll just have to come up with another plan
, she decided.

They lingered there for half an hour, while her father pointed out landmarks. At the mention of raiders, Imi stared hard at the horizon. She listened to the watchers describe what a ship looked like, noting the details in case she should come across one on her way to the sea bells.

After a while her skin began to feel unpleasantly dry. In the corner of her eye she saw Teiti surreptitiously nudge her father and give him a nod. He announced it was time to leave.

Once they had all descended into the tunnel and wet their skin again, the guard that had lifted her suggested she might like to ride on his back. She looked at her father eagerly. He smiled.

“Go on. Just watch you don’t knock your head on the ceiling.”

She climbed on the guard’s back and rested her head on his shoulder, pretending to be sleepy. Then, as her father, aunt and the guard began to descend the staircase, she started to put together another plan to escape her protectors, and the city.

The curves of the paths within the Temple gardens were gentle and flawless. Whenever Auraya viewed them from her room in the Tower she found herself a little repelled by the overtly planned and ordered design of the gardens. In comparison to the natural wildness of the forest next to the village she had grown up in, or the magnificent disorder of Si’s wild territory, the interlocking circles and carefully spaced plants seemed ridiculous.

From the ground, however, there was something reassuring about the tamed regularity of the gardens. There was no danger of being stalked by leramers or vorns, or stumbling upon sleepvine. Nothing was left around to rot, so the air was fragrant with flowers and fruit. The curves of the paths created one attractive vista after another, and led a walker sensibly to where they needed to go without the temptation of cutting across the carefully trimmed grass.

Today Auraya was not taking a walk for pleasure, however. She and Juran were bound for the Sacred Grove.

They passed one of the many priests and priestesses who stood guard over the grove. The man appeared to be simply relaxing on a stone bench, reading a scroll, but Auraya knew his main task was to prevent anyone but the select few who tended the grove—and the White—from entering.

The priest made the sign of the circle and Juran nodded in reply. The path took Auraya and Juran through a gap in a wall of close-grown trees, then curved to the left. There it wound through a grove of fruit trees tended by more priests and priestesses before it reached a stone wall.

A wooden door filled a narrow opening in the wall. As they reached it the door swung inward. Auraya shivered as she stepped through. Though she had visited the grove several times the previous year she still felt a thrill of awe whenever she entered.

Four trees grew within the circular wall. They were the only four survivors of the hundreds of saplings planted here a hundred years before. Two had sprung up close to one another, and where their branches met they had twined together sinuously. Another was small and stunted. The third appeared to be crouching close to the ground, its branches spread wide.

The leaves and bark of these trees were so dark they were almost black. On close inspection the white wood beneath could be seen between cracks in the bark. The dark color was highlighted by the white pebbles that covered the ground, apparently to help retain moisture in the soil. The trees were better suited to a colder climate than Hania’s.

The color of the trees was strange enough, but the growth of their branches was even stranger. They had grown in weird and unnatural ways. Most of the smaller branches had small disc-like swellings along their length, and several of these had developed holes within the swellings. Other branches higher up had formed many thin twigs that had woven themselves together to form a cup, or larger swellings containing small holes. As Auraya watched, a small bird landed in one of the cups. A fledgling head appeared and the parent began to feed it.

“Did you see that?” a priest said.

Auraya turned to see a high priest speaking to a young priestess. The woman, a trainee carer, nodded.

“It has grown into the shape of a nest,” she said.

“Yes. If you climbed up there and put your hand inside you would find that the wood was warm. The bird has trained the wood not just to grow into a nest, but imprinted it with the Gift to convert magic into heat.”

“Why does the tree do it?”

The old man shrugged. “Nobody knows. Maybe the gods made it that way.”

“I can see now why it’s called the welcome tree,” the woman said. “I thought it a strange name for such an ugly tree.”

Auraya smiled. It was an ugly tree, but only because of the use humans had put its magically malleable wood to. When Juran had first brought Auraya here she had been amazed to learn that these trees were the source of the priest rings. The swellings on the branches would eventually be harvested, each ring containing the Gift that allowed priests to communicate with each other.

The welcome trees contained great potential, both for good and evil, but when Juran had told her of their limitations she had wondered how the Circlians found a use for them at all. The trees were hard to keep alive. Groves of them were maintained in most Circlian Temples, though only the well-guarded one in Jarime was used for growing the rings of priests and priestesses. Those that tended the trees guarded the secrets to keeping them alive and healthy.

The branches must be “trained” every day. When she had helped create her first link ring, she had needed to visit the grove early each morning and sit with the tree growing her ring for at least an hour. Despite all the effort required to make a ring, the wood lost its qualities within a few years. Priest rings were constantly being grown to replace those that were no longer effective. They were also only ever imbued with the one simple Gift of communication. More powerful Gifts could be taught, but the more magic those Gifts required, the quicker the wood lost the imprint.