The Mirror of Fate (6 page)

The branches above me stirred slightly, sending down a shower of dead needles. I glanced at Hallia, who had already strode off into the forest, following the slanting beams of the afternoon sun. I pressed my palm into the tree’s bark for another few seconds, and whispered, “Someday, perhaps, I’ll return.”

Catching up with Hallia wasn’t easy, since she was trotting speedily through the woods. No doubt she would have suggested that we change ourselves into deer, but for her awareness that I needed to transport the ballymag. Yet even with two legs, she leaped with ease over roots and fallen trunks, while I seemed to snag my tunic on every passing branch. The ballymag’s heavy sling didn’t help—nor did the occasional claw that would reach out and snap at me.

Panting, I finally caught up with her. “Do you,” I huffed, “know where you’re leading us?”

She ducked beneath a fragrant bough of hemlock. “If this is the forest I remember, the Summer Lands lie to the west. I’m hoping to find a landmark I recognize before long.”

“And I’m hoping to find some water. To rid myself of this—” I slapped away the roving claw. “This baggage.”

For a long while we trekked through the trees, hearing only the crunching of our footsteps or the occasional scurrying of a squirrel on a branch. Then, from a ravine below us, we heard a sharp thud, repeated several times. A sword. Or an axe, hacking and chopping. Suddenly, a tormented wind swept through the branches, rising to a cacophonous moan.

Both of us froze. I took Hallia’s arm. “We can’t do anything to save this forest, but maybe we can save at least one tree.”

She nodded.

Following the chopping sound, we flew down the ravine, crashing through the thicket of blackberry bushes that covered the hillside. Though I tried my best to keep up with Hallia, she soon left me behind. Once I tripped on a fallen limb, landing with a thud on my chest. And on the ballymag, whose shrieks nearly deafened me. I regained my feet and again plunged down the hill.

A few moments later, the ground leveled out. I burst into a narrow, grassy clearing. There stood Hallia, arms crossed against her chest, facing a man holding a rough-hewn axe. His ears, like those of most Fincayrans, were slightly pointed at the top. But it was his eyes that commanded attention: They glowered angrily at the young woman who dared to stand between him and the tall, gnarled pine whose trunk bore a ragged gash in its side.

“Away with ye, girl!” His tattered tunic swirling about him, he waved his axe at Hallia. Behind him stood a woman, her expression as frayed as her uncombed hair. In her arms she held a baby who cried piteously while her thin legs thrashed the air.

“Away!” shouted the exasperated man. “It’s only a wee bit o’ firewood we be wantin’.” He lifted his axe threateningly. “And soon shall be gettin’.”

“For that you don’t need to cut down a whole tree,” objected Hallia, not budging. “Certainly not an old one like this. Besides, there’s plenty of wood on the ground. Here, I’ll help you gather some.”

“Not dry enough for kindlin’,” retorted the man. “Now stand ye aside.”

“I will not,” declared Hallia.

Panting from my run, I stepped to her side. “Nor will I.”

The man glared at us, eyes smoldering. He raised his axe higher.

“Our babe, she needs warmth,” wailed the woman. “And a morsel o’ cooked food. She hasn’t eaten a scrap since yesterday morn.”

Hallia, her face softening, tilted her head in puzzlement. “Why not? Where is your home?”

The woman hesitated, trading glances with her husband. “A village,” she said cautiously. “Near the swamp.”

“The Haunted Marsh?” I asked, with a quick look at Hallia. “Isn’t that a long way from here?”

The woman eyed me strangely, but said nothing.

“Wherever your village is,” Hallia pressed, “why aren’t you there now?”

Ignoring the man’s gesture to stay silent, the woman started to sob. “Because . . . it be invaded. By
them
.”

“By who?”

The man swung his axe in the air. “By the marsh ghouls,” he answered gruffly. “Now move yeselves aside.”

At that moment, the ballymag lifted his whiskered head above the edge of the sling. Then, at the sight of the axe, he whimpered loudly and promptly buried himself again in the folds.

“Invaded?” I repeated. “I’ve never heard of marsh ghouls doing such a thing before.”

The woman tried to give her little girl a finger to suck, but the child pushed it away. “Our village be borderin’ the swamp for a hundred and fifty years, and we never heard of such a thing, neither. Their screeches and wails, of course, we hear every night. Louder than battlin’ cats! But if we be leavin’ them alone, they do the same for us. Until . . . that all changed.”

Her husband took a step toward us, brandishing his axe. “Enough talkin’,” he barked.

“Wait,” I commanded. “If it’s fire you want, I know another way.”

Before he could object, I raised my staff high. Beneath my fingertips, I could feel one of the engravings on the shaft, the carved shape of a butterfly. With my free hand, I pointed at a tangle of needles and sticks near the man’s feet. Silently, I called upon the powers of Changing, wherever they might be found. Though I felt no wind, my tunic suddenly billowed, sleeves flapping. Seeing this, the man gasped, while his wife drew back several steps.

In a slow, rhythmic cadence, I spoke the ancient words of the fire-bringer:

Flames now arise
From forest or fen;
Brighter than eyes,
Beyond mortal ken.

Father of heat
For anvil and pyre;
Mother of light,
O infinite fire.

A sizzling sound erupted from the wood. Brown needles curled downward, while bark split open and began to snap and pop. A thin trail of smoke rose upward, steadily swelling, until—flash! The sticks, bark, and needles burst into flames.

The man shouted and leaped aside. Even so, the hem of his torn tunic caught a spark and started to burn. Hastily grabbing a tuft of long grass, he swatted at the flames. His wife, holding tight to their child, backed farther away.

At last, the fire on his tunic extinguished, the man turned to face me. For a long moment, he stared in silence. “Sorcery,” he growled at last. “Cursed sorcery.”

“No, no,” I replied. “Just a little magic. To help you.” I waved at the crackling flames. “Come, now. Warm your family, as well as your food, by this fire.”

He looked at his wife, her eyes filled with a mixture of terror and longing. Then he took her by the arm. “Never,” he spat. “No sorcerer’s flames for us!”

“But . . . it’s what you need.”

Heedless of my protests, they crossed the meadow and retreated into the trees. Hallia and I stood there, dumbfounded, until the sounds of snapping sticks and the crying child no longer reached us.

Glancing down at my shadow, I caught sight of it slapping its sides. Jeering at me! I roared, jumping on top of it. Hallia spun around, but the instant before she saw the shadow, it returned to normal, moving only as I did. She looked at me in bewilderment.

Fuming, I stamped out the fire with my boot. My shadow, I was irked to see, did the same but with a touch more vigor. With a sigh, I said, “I hadn’t intended to frighten them—only to help them.”

She observed me sadly. “Intentions aren’t everything, young hawk. Believe me, I know.” For an instant, she looked as if she yearned to say something more—but caught herself. She gestured in the direction of the departed family. “After all, they hadn’t intended to kill this poor tree. Only to build a fire for their child.”

“But they’re one and the same!”

“Wasn’t your trying to send the ballymag home, and sending us all here instead, also one and the same?”

My cheeks grew hotter. “That’s completely different.” I ground my heel into the coals. “At least this time the magic worked. Just not in the way I’d hoped.”

“Listen, you did what you could. I’m only lamenting . . . oh, I’m not even sure what.” She watched the dying coals. “It’s just hard, sometimes, to do the right thing.”

“So I shouldn’t even try?”

“No. Just try carefully.”

Still perturbed, I gazed at her. Then, turning back to the scarred pine, I winced at the size of its wound. “Maybe, at least, I can do one right thing today.”

Kneeling at the base of the elder pine, I reached out a finger and touched the sweet, sticky sap oozing out of the gouge. It felt thicker than blood, and lighter in hue, more amber than red. Even so, it seemed very much like the blood that had flowed from my own shoulder not long before. I listened to the barely audible whisper of its quivering needles. Then, very carefully, I placed both of my hands over the spot, willing the sap to hold itself back, to bind the wound.

In time I felt the sap congealing under my palms. Removing my hands, I crushed some fallen pine needles and spread them gently over the area. Bending closer, I blew several slow, steady breaths, all the while sending my thoughts into the fibers of the tree.
Draw deep, you roots, and hold firm. Soar high, you branches; join with air and sun. Bark—grow thick and strong. And heartwood: stand sturdy, bend well.

Finally, when I felt I could do no more, I backed away from the trunk. I turned to speak to Hallia, but before I could, another voice spoke first. I had never heard it before—so breathy, vibrant, and strange, made more of air than of sound. Yet I knew it at once. It was the voice of the tree itself.

6:
B
OUND
R
OOTS

To my surprise, the tree spoke not in the language of pines, that whooshing and whispering tongue I had come to know, but in the main language of Fincayra. The same language that Hallia and I spoke to each other! Yet its airy voice, and its cadence that swayed like a sapling, were different. Strikingly different. I had never heard anyone speak—or, in truth, sing—in such a way.

In deepening soil my under-roots toil:
Following, swallowing—

Arboresque moil.

For year after year, for centuries dear,
I build my roots to stand on.

Grow grand on!

While branches reach skyward

To make a crown royal,

I build my roots to rise on.

Grow wise on.
Grow wise on.

Uncertain, I backed away. After a moment, my shoulder bumped into Hallia’s. Her eyes, even wider than usual, were focused on the tree. From within the folds of my sling, another set of round eyes, along with some quivering whiskers, edged higher. Suddenly the entire tree shuddered, with such evident pain that I felt myself shudder in response. Flakes of bark, wet with sap, drifted down from its branches, falling like tears on the meadow.

Too soon comes the day: O spare me, I pray—
Hacking, attacking—

A man comes to slay.

I stand in his path, incur his great wrath,
Though never would I harm him.

Alarm him!

My living, my learning,

Would all end today,

Though never would I claim him.

Or maim him.
Or maim him.

The breathy voice grew shrill, almost like a whistle. I felt a sharp pain in my ribs, as if a blade had plunged into my side. But the tree continued:

Before lifesap ends, arrival of friends!
Braving, yes saving—

Ere axe my heart rends.

At this, Hallia’s hand slipped into my own. Whether from her touch, or the tree’s new tone, the pain in my side started to recede. Gradually, my back straightened, and I stood taller, even as the tree itself did the same.

You challenge his will, defy him to kill,
So I shall keep on living.

And giving!

My limbs gladly lift,

My trunk freely bends,

So I shall keep on growing.

And knowing.
And knowing.

Exultantly, the great pine tree waved its uppermost branches. Then, with a loud creaking, it twisted its trunk a full quarter turn—first to one side, then to the other. The tree, I realized, was stretching. Preparing for some sort of strenuous feat.

Midway up the trunk, a pair of grooves opened between strips of bark—revealing two slender, undulating eyes, as brown as the richest soil. The eyes gazed at us intently for several seconds before finally turning downward. All of a sudden, the whole mass of roots began to quake, shaking the tree enough to shower us with needles, twigs, and bark. Wood creaked and snapped. Clods of earth, tossed loose by the roots, flew into the air.

Hallia’s hand squeezed mine more tightly. The ballymag let out a frightened cry, then thrust his head deep inside the sling.

At that moment, a very large root twisted, buckled—and broke free of the ground. With a spray of soil, the root slapped the turf like a knobby, hairy whip. Slowly, it splayed its hundreds of tendrils for balance. The trunk leaned to the side, placing much of its weight on the unburied root. On the opposite side, another root broke loose. Then another. And another. Clumps of dirt sailed in all directions.

Finally, the tree stood still again. Yet now it stood not beneath the ground, but on top of it. As Hallia and I watched, peering into the soil-brown eyes, the tree lifted a broad root and took a step toward us.

We did not flee. Rather, we stood like rooted saplings ourselves, drinking deeply of the moist, resinous air that swirled about us, wrapping us in a fragrant cloak. For we knew that we had encountered one of the best-disguised creatures in all of Fincayra. A creature who could hide so well that decades, sometimes centuries, would pass without one of its kind ever being noticed. A creature whose name, in the old tongue, was
nynniaw pennent
—always there, never found.

A walking tree.

With heavy, halting steps, the walking tree came closer. Behind it, a trail of moistened grasses sparkled in the sunlight. At last, when it was almost upon us, it stopped. Then, unhurriedly, the remotest tips of the tree’s roots wrapped lightly around our ankles, pressing against our skin. Hallia and I smiled, for we both felt the same surge of warmth, flowing up our legs and into our bodies.