The Simbul's Gift (20 page)

Bro scarcely knew his father's kin. Rizcarn never spoke of them, except to say that his parents weren't alive and that GoldenMoss was rooted in a distant part of the Yuirwood. Maybe not so distant now, considering that Bro didn't know where he was. He might find his father's tree-family before he found his mother's, but when Bro imagined the Cha'Tel'Quessir, he was looking for familiar faces. When he found MightyTree he'd sit down between his grandparents and tell them what had happened in Sulalk. He'd weep, but he wouldn't be alone.

They couldn't bury Shali, but they'd bury her beads—Bro slapped the pouch resting against his thigh, assuring himself that the seelie hadn't stolen them. His grandfather would give him a second black bead. He'd be an orphan for the rest of his life, but he wouldn't be alone.

The tears Bro hadn't shed when he awoke in the tree
overwhelmed him, but each time he wept, it hurt a little less because Shali was a little further away. He swiped his eyes on a damp sleeve and called the colt again, wanting a companion more than he worried about predators.

A crescent moon had risen above the trees. In a clear sky, it shed sufficient light on the forest floor for half-elf eyes to follow a trail, once he dusted off the tracking lessons he'd had from his uncles and cousins. On his hands and knees in the soggy mulch, Bro examined the ground where he'd last seen the colt. His stomach soured when he found the incongruous mating of hooves and claws. At least there was no doubt he'd found the right trail.

Broken branches and muddy streaks on bare ground marked where Dancer had fallen on his mismatched legs. Bro searched for blood, but every leaf and twig glistened moistly in the moonlight. One place, where the colt seemed to have had trouble regaining his feet, a sapling had been broken off. Using the Simbul's knife, Bro stripped the smaller branches and made himself a staff.

His confidence rose with a big stick in his hand. He moved faster, breaking into a run at the end when he saw a familiar shape among the trees. The colt raised his head before Bro called his name and met him halfway, nudging hands and sleeves in search of carrots. Bro ran his hands along the colt's neck and back, then down each leg. Except for mud and clinging leaves, the colt seemed unharmed by the seelie spells. Even the braided halter and its lead rope were intact. With the rope firmly in hand, Bro wrapped his arms around the colt's filthy neck. He'd succumbed to another round of tears when he heard a familiar, yet terrifying, sound.

“Never fight with the seelie, son.”

Bro backed slowly away from Dancer. He'd dropped his sapling staff, but he had the Simbul's knife and withdrew it from its sheath while he scanned the trees for the voice's source.

“Do what they ask, son, and they'll leave you the way they found you. Do it well enough and they'll give you a taste of their honey and show you the crystal palaces where they live.”

“Rizcarn?”

Bro had spotted a too-dark patch in one of the trees.
The voice came from within it, but whether it came from his father—? Strange things lived in the Yuirwood—or didn't live. MightyTree storytellers preached about finding one's ancestors among the trees. Rizcarn himself had preached about waking the old gods. His mother had claimed to have seen the Yuir elves—the full-blooded Sy-Tel'Quessir—dancing by moonlight when she was a little girl. But most of the stories involving the living and the dead ended badly for the living.

“Rizcarn?” the shadow laughed. “Is that any greeting for your father?”

“Poppa,” Bro said instead, checking his grip on the Simbul's knife. “Come down where I can see you, Poppa.”

Branches rustled. There was a light
whump
as something landed on the ground. Bro strained his eyes. His father wasn't like other Cha'Tel'Quessir. His hair was glossy black, his skin, the mottled color of moss-covered bark. While he'd lived, he could disappear in midday shadows; at night he was invisible, except for his eyes. As a boy, Bro had laughed when he saw milk-white crescents glistening where his father's face should be. Tonight he remained silent.

“Don't trust me, son? I know I've been gone a long time.”

“You've been dead!” Bro blurted.

The crescents vanished. Bro heard last year's leaves crunching beneath Rizcarn's feet. The sound reassured him a little: of dangerous creatures, maybe a quarter of them, had no substance and made no noise with their feet. He retreated a step, into Dancer's shoulder. The colt was calm; whatever that meant.

Rizcarn reappeared in moonlight. Everything that could be seen matched Bro's lost memories. Almost everything. He'd never seen that shirt with silvery studs along the seams and there was a knife long enough to be called a sword slung at his father's waist.

“You've changed,” Rizcarn said before Bro could get his tongue around the same words. “I suppose they're calling you Ebroin now?”

He shook his head. “Bro. They call me Bro. Except for Mother—” His tongue froze again. Rizcarn—if the man-shape were Rizcarn—didn't seem to know where he'd been these past seven years. Wouldn't know what had happened
to his wife two days ago. Between two heartbeats, Bro gulped down his grief, deciding to say nothing about Shali.… yet. “Mother still calls me Ember.”

“Mothers don't let go.”

Rizcarn came closer. He stroked the length of Dancer's nose, then reached for Bro's hand, the hand that held the Simbul's knife. Without thinking, Bro brought the knife up between them.

“You can trust me, son. I am your father.”

“You died, Poppa. I saw you. Your neck was broken. We dug a grave and buried you … 
seven
years ago.”

Bro watched something like shock harden his father's face for a moment, then the moment passed. He realized Rizcarn's hand was touching his.

“Sheathe it, son. Relkath wasn't finished with me. I've come back to finish what I started. I've been waiting for you.”

“Here? I've never been here before. I don't even know where I am. One of us is very lucky, Poppa.”

Rizcarn turned his attention to the colt, releasing his son's hand. “You've done well, son. He's strong and healthy. Zandilar will be pleased; she's been waiting for you, too.”

Bro sheathed the knife, dropped Dancer's lead rope, and ran his hands though his hair, as if his fingers could massage understanding through his scalp. Rizcarn studying Dancer gave Bro an opportunity to study Rizcarn. He guessed the opportunity was no accident, but took it gratefully.

The father he remembered was a tall man. When they'd last embraced Bro's ear had pressed against his father's heart. Now, Bro was a bit taller and broader, as if his life among humans during his growing years had made him more like them, less like the Cha'Tel'Quessir.

He wondered what it would feel like, staring over his father's shoulder, his arms clutched around ribs no wider than his own. Seven years ago, he would have given anything to hug his father again.

Now …?

Now, Bro had all he could do to extend one arm. And stop short of touching his father's arm. Rizcarn's shirt was dry.

“Were you waiting long, Rizcarn?”

The older man turned. His eyes, dark circles within stark white, were narrow. “Still can't make up your mind, son? What sign do you need?”

Bro shook his head.

“What's happened to you, son? Aren't you glad to see me again?”

He tried to say that he was, but Bro had never been much of a liar. He stared at the stars, at the trees, anywhere but at the man-shape who claimed to be his father. “You left us, Poppa. You went away so many times. We thought it wouldn't be different. She thought, but it was. You're seven years too late, Poppa.”

Rizcarn touched the beads around Bro's neck, pushed them aside. He touched Bro's shirt and rubbed the homespun cloth slowly between his fingers. “I couldn't find you, son. She'd taken you away. Settled you with the dirt-eaters.” He released Bro's shirt and laid his hand on Bro's shoulder where it was a warm, reassuring weight. “Outside's no place for one of Relkath's. No place for any Cha'Tel'Quessir. It's her fault. Blame her, son; she's kept us apart.”

Bro shrugged free. “You broke Momma's heart, Poppa, when you
died
. She couldn't bear the trees. Every one reminded her of you. She couldn't live in the Yuirwood any longer, so she left.”

“Taking you, son. She took you away. She shouldn't have done that. You belong to the forest.”

He'd said the same words countless times to Shali, but they sounded different in Rizcarn's voice, not about home, about possession. For the love and honor he held in his heart for both his parents, Bro swallowed his growing anger and said nothing.

“That's over now.” Rizcarn took Dancer's lead rope. “Past. Forgotten. You're here now; that's what matters. We have much to do, son. Let's go.”

Bro yanked the rope from Rizcarn's hand. Dancer shied; his front hooves lifted. Bro yanked the rope a second time and snapped the loose end against the colt's neck. It was, perhaps, the fourth or fifth time in the colt's short life that Bro had struck him in anger. Dancer might have exploded. Instead he stood rigid, just like Bro.

“Don't tell me what to do, Poppa,” he said after a
moment's silence. “I'm not a boy anymore. I'm not your son, ready to do whatever you told me to do, because you were gone so much. I saw my father fall out of a tree and break his fool neck. Maybe you're him come back; maybe you're not. Maybe you should ask me where
I've
been and why
I've
come back to the Yuirwood. Maybe you should ask about
her.”

“Her?”

“Her. My mother. Shali. Your wife! Yes, she took me with her to a village outside the Yuirwood. She met a man, a good man, a man who was there all the time, who never left her alone, crying herself to sleep—” Bro could scarcely believe the anger pouring out of his mouth, or the ache he felt for Dent. “A human man who loved her, not the forest or the trees or Relkath Many-Limbed—”

“Son … Ebroin … be careful what you say.”

Bro ignored the warning. “They had a child between them, a daughter, human, with his blue eyes and a round face. She saw her father every day—every gods' curst day, Poppa. Until two days ago.” His anger flagged, remembering it now as if it were still happening. He drew a deep breath, mixing anger and grief together. “Wizards came to our village. Red Wizards, blue wizards, all kinds of wizards including the Simbul herself. Everybody died except me and my sister. Dent … Dent …” Bro couldn't see Rizcarn through his tears. He saw his stepfather, though, clear as life, or death. “They'd cut him in two and part of him was gone, just gone. And Momma was dead, lying on the floor with the back of her head smashed in.

“I tried to run away with Tay-Fay and Dancer. I killed a man, Poppa, on my way to the stable. I shoved a pitchfork into his gut a score of times. When I went to the stable, I was too late; the Simbul was already there. She'd come for Dancer.”

“The Simbul, son? You're sure it was the witch-queen?”

“You say you're my father; she said she was the Simbul. She killed the last wizard, then she tried to steal Dancer. I wouldn't let her. I burst into her stealing spell and we wound up here, in the Yuirwood.” He was nearing the end of his story, the end of his strength. “I … I let her take Tay-Fay. I stayed behind, with Dancer. I'd had a dream—a vision—when he was born. Zandilar, she told me to come
dance with her, here in the Yuirwood. I knew I would; I wanted to come home …”

Rizcarn took him by the arms. “You have come home. She's here, waiting for you.”

“Momma?”

“Zandilar!”

Bro could almost see Zandilar dancing in the moon's reflection off his father's eyes. He could almost hear her voice. Almost forget what he'd seen these past two days.

“There's a place here in the Yuirwood for you, son. Let's go.”

It would be so easy to let Rizcarn lead him where he'd wanted to go, to Zandilar, but Bro shrugged free a second time.

“You don't care. You don't care that Momma's dead or how she died. You don't care about anything but the forest.”

“Her path led out of the Yuirwood, son.”

Rizcarn reached again and was met by tense muscles, bared teeth. He staggered backwards, as if Bro had physically assaulted him. His mouth worked furiously, shaping unspoken words until he finally said:

“As dead as I was to her, son, outside the Yuirwood, Shali was dead to me. You still have your tears; mine have all been shed. I grieved for both of you, but you've come back and I cannot deny my joy at seeing you.”

He opened his arms and it seemed, for a heartbeat, that there was radiant light within them. The moment passed, the light faded, but a sense of warmth remained. Bro was cold; he was alone. He knew the risks, and took them anyway: a semblance of a father was better than no father, no mother, no family, no one at all. His father's arms tightened around him. For another heartbeat, everything was wrong, then that moment, too, passed and he let his hands slide into the warmth between Rizcarn's hair and shirt. There was a difference, looking over Rizcarn's shoulder, but it was not as great as he'd imagined it would be, and he was still aware of his father's heartbeat.

“Come with me, son. Walk beside me as I do Relkath's work. If you're not happy, go back to the dirt-eaters'—to the human villages. No one will stop you.”

Bro nodded. Where else was he going to go? Back to a
burned out village? To the Simbul's royal city? To MightyTree or GoldenMoss? He could starve before he found his living kin. Rizcarn wasn't starving; his flesh was solid beneath his fancy shirt.

“I missed you, Poppa. I missed you so much that I hated you, too.”

“I was a fool, Ebroin. I taunted fate; you and your mother paid the price. I'm sorry; forgive me?”