The Simbul's Gift (24 page)

“My prince!”

Wenne cast aside her cloth and threads. Lauzoril glimpsed a band of heraldic griffins, each different and remarkable, before she threw herself against him.

“I did not think you'd find me before sundown.”

Sheer joy sparkled in her eyes before they closed and she tightened her arms again.

“Your smile haunts my every thought, dear lady,” he replied. “I had to find you or go mad.”

A statement not so very far from the truth. Lauzoril freed his ribs and raised her hand to his lips for a storybook kiss. It took one kind of madness to stave off another. Wenne wrested free. She retrieved her discarded work.

“It's almost finished. You must try it on, my prince.”

He took the shirt in his hands. She attacked the shirt he wore. All her considerable magic was in her fingers.

“Not here, dear lady,” he insisted before she had him naked.

Still clutching the griffin shirt, Lauzoril carried his wife to their bedchamber. Secure behind a wizard-locked door, he let her strip his shirt away and made an honest effort to pull the other over his head. Wenne put a stop to that; she always did. Wanton fingers caressed his chest and flanks, fascinated by his various scars, but never—never—exploring the oldest scar of all: the swirling tattoo her grandfather had placed above his heart.

When he was a boy, Bro couldn't imagine an empty horizon. Then his father had died, and his mother led him away from MightyTree. Two days' walking and the Yuirwood had been behind them.

Had she known the one, fast path out of the forest? he'd demanded, unwilling to take another step in a treeless world. Shali had taken his hand; she hadn't known where the Yuirwood ended, only that if they walked north from MightyTree it would end before the second sunset. Bro remembered that her hand had been cold and shaking and that neither of them had slept that night, huddled beneath countless hungry stars.

By now, Bro had gotten used to fields of grass around him and fields of stars overhead. It was trees that made him nervous halfway through the third day following Rizcarn. They'd traveled through a Yuirwood so dissimilar from the forest he remembered that he wondered if they weren't somewhere altogether different. He'd considered that they were traveling east or west—the Yuirwood was much longer than it was wide—but whenever he sighted sun and shadow, it seemed they were walking north, the same way he and Shali had walked seven years ago.

Seemed
, because Bro hadn't made many sightings. The sky had stormed or threatened rain since the morning after he'd met Rizcarn. Rizcarn might be leading him and the colt in circles, though that
seemed
unlikely. They'd been places that he hoped were unique and would certainly stir his memory if he saw them again.

The first day they'd scaled a ridge of shattering slate, made doubly treacherous by a blinding rain. He'd pled with Rizcarn to wait until the rain eased or look for a way
around. Hooves, he'd shouted through the wind and thunder, weren't meant for slick rocks. Rizcarn didn't answer, didn't even slow down. Bro got Dancer across. They both fell a few times, getting bruised and scraped in the process. Rizcarn said it was Bro's fault for not trusting Relkath Many-limbed.

Bro hadn't raised any objections last night, at twilight, when Rizcarn led them into a quaking bog where the rising mists had malevolent eyes. He whispered Relkath's name at every step and kept a firm grip on Dancer's lead rope. Now they were in a swamp, surrounded by dead trees, looking for all the world like bony hands rising out of the murk. The dark water was mirror smooth—except for the V-shaped ripples that matched their pace for a little while, then disappeared.

Bro swore he'd add the swamp to the places he never wanted to revisit. Foul-smelling muck surrounded his feet with every heavy step, ruining the Simbul's fine boots. Yet neither the muck nor the trolling predators were the worst part of the swamp.

He'd never given much thought to insects, except when hunting honey trees with his cousins. Today, every step stirred up a new horde to join the dark clouds already hovering around his heads. The stinging, buzzing, crawling, itching, scratching creatures pushed him and Dancer to the edge of madness. Resting, though, was the worst of all. The moment Bro sank down on a damp, rotting tree trunk, there were ten bugs for every one there'd been before. They swarmed in his ears, followed sweat tracks down his back, and attacked his flesh as if it were the Midwinter feast.

If Bro had been a year or three younger, he'd have done something foolish: refused to take another mucky step, walked off on his own, or hung his head and bawled. But he was a man. He sat, suffered, and tried very hard not to think about anything at all.

Zandilar's Dancer wasn't a man. A colt couldn't reason his way through misery. He'd been fractious when they'd first entered the swamp. He'd kicked and snapped at everything, including Bro, who'd held his lead rope. Now, his twilight coat was streaky black with sweat and swamp water. His head hung and his tail was the only part of him that moved constantly.

Bro abandoned his rotted log and stood at Dancer's flank where swishing horsehair protected him as well. Rizcarn took Bro's movement as a sign that he was rested and, without a word, started walking again. Wearily, Bro untied the rope.

A light rain fell, sluicing sweat from Bro's skin and driving the bugs away. But the relief was short-lived: The air warmed when the rain ended; the bugs were worse than ever. Wisps rose from stagnant water, larger and more menacing than the ones in the bog. Bro no longer wanted to rest and feared nothing more than the chance that Rizcarn would call a halt for the night before the swamp was behind them.

“Relkath protects, son,” Rizcarn said with a laugh after Bro succumbed to a spate of furious slaps at his sodden trousers. “Have faith.”

It was Rizcarn's friendliest statement since they'd started walking.

“I'm trying.” Bro took a chance, adding, “It might help, though, if I knew where we're going or why.”

“Relkath protects. What more is necessary?”

Bro stopped walking. “I'm hungry,” he said evenly. “Bugs or no bugs, Dancer and I need food. More than that, I need to know where we're going and when we'll get out of this swamp. I need answers, Rizcarn, or I'm turning around while there's still light to leave.”

“As you will, son.”

Rizcarn held out his hand, not for a parting handshake, but for the lead rope. Bro refused to surrender it.

“Answers, Father.”

Rizcarn turned away; he stared at the stagnant water. Bro put his shoulder against Zandilar, ready to turn the colt on the narrow high-ground path they'd been following.

“There's an island rise beyond that.” Rizcarn pointed to a line of skeletal trees shrouded in hanging vines. “You want food, son, you'll find it there. Rest, too, though not as long as you or Zandilar's Dancer would like. We've got to move smartly. This is no place to be after sundown.”

Bro couldn't argue that, but he needed more before he'd lead Dancer across the flooded mire.

“Where are we going, Father? How long until we get there?”

Rizcarn reverted to his most inscrutable. “Zandilar waits. Relkath protects.” He waded into the dark water.

Bro looked back the way they'd come. Their tracks were easy enough to follow in the soft ground, but swamps weren't as still as they first appeared. Water seeped into Dancer's hoofprints even as he watched. The tracks they'd made this morning entering the swamp were almost certainly gone, and Relkath's protection wasn't likely to follow him if he walked away from Rizcarn.

He tightened his grip on the lead rope. Muck closed over his ankles at every step, but the water itself never rose above his waist and Dancer's only thought was to stay close. The largest snake Bro had ever seen lurked in the vines overhanging the island's banks. As thick as Bro's thigh and unknowably long, it watched them approach with malevolent ruby eyes and dropped into the water as they passed.

“We're too big for it,” Rizcarn laughed. “That makes it angry. It thinks of its grandfather, who could squeeze the life from the colt, and wishes it were full-grown. Just like you, son. Just like you. Eat your enemies, son, before they eat you.”

Do I have enemies now? The question popped, unwelcome, into Bro's mind. Are you my enemy, Rizcarn?

Then it was time to start swimming. The water deepened near the island and they had to fight an unexpected current. Bro let Dancer pull him. He held onto the lead rope as the colt surged out of the water and was a half-breath too late letting go once Dancer had solid ground beneath his hooves. After adding new bruises to his old ones, Bro crawled to the verge, where he offered Rizcarn a boost.

Arm against arm and so close that Bro could smell the other man's breath, they stared into each other's eyes. Bro had thrown up a mighty wall between present and past when he started walking behind Rizcarn. He hadn't thought about Sulalk or his mother in nearly three days. Suddenly, the wall crumbled. He wanted this man to be his father; he didn't want to be an orphan.

Rizcarn pulled away before he found the right words.

“Over there.” Rizcarn pointed at a toppled tree. “Food's there.”

Despite the summer heat, Bro felt bone cold as he followed Rizcarn, wondering how Rizcarn had known the island was here, much less the tree.

The food was a mottled fungus called tree ears that grew in thick ridges along the trunk. Rizcarn swore it was wholesome. He broke off an ear the size of his forearm and bit in. Bro's mouth was sour and pasty. What else, he asked himself, had he expected? From the start Rizcarn's caches had been rotting carrion. At least tree ears were wholesome. Shali floated them in his favorite stews. He'd never eaten one raw …

There had to be a first time for everything.

Snapping off a more modest piece than Rizcarn, Bro sniffed it—it had no odor—touched it to his tongue—it had no noticeable taste—then, when Rizcarn began to laugh, shoved it into his mouth. The texture wasn't as bad as he'd feared, and the taste, after he'd chewed it a while, was almost pleasant. Sitting beside his dinner, he pulled off a chunk the size of his fist. He'd gnawed through two larger chunks before he was finished.

Bro finished his meal with a drink of the fast-flowing water around the island's edge. For the first time since that last night in Sulalk, his stomach was full.

“How long before we have to start walking again?” Bro asked when he rejoined Rizcarn.

Rizcarn looked at the sky where a bright spot marked the sun's place behind the clouds.

“Rest, son. Sleep, if you need to. I'll watch the colt and wake you when it's time.”

The thought occurred to Bro, as he stretched out in the grass, that Rizcarn might head off with the colt while he napped. Zandilar's Dancer was more important to Rizcarn than he was. But Dancer wouldn't go quietly without him holding the rope. Confident that the colt would awaken him, if Rizcarn didn't, Bro closed his eyes.

It seemed that no time had passed when Rizcarn shook him awake.

“Time to go, son.”

Rizcarn offered his hand, which Bro took, bounding to his feet and regretting it immediately. The island swayed and Bro swayed with it, barely keeping his balance. His gut rebelled. He lurched toward the water, clutching his
sides. He didn't make it, but fell, retching, in the grass. His joints ached, as if there was a knife wedged in every one.

When Rizcarn appeared at his side, Bro blurted out one word, “Poison,” and retched again.

With the few clear thoughts left in his skull, Bro doubted his own judgment: Rizcarn wasn't ill. Of course, seven years ago, Rizcarn had been rotting dead, just like the tree. Bro stopped thinking. He sipped water his father brought him, then closed his eyes and waited to die.

“Are you well yet?” Rizcarn asked.

Bro opened his eyes. The sky was noticeably dimmer than he remembered it and streaked with red and orange, blue and purple.

“Can you walk? We must start walking. I told you, this is no place to be after sundown.”

Walk? Bro couldn't raise his head without pain, but his thoughts were clear: If he wasn't dead, then he didn't want to be in the swamp. With Rizcarn's help, he got to his feet. Clinging to his father, he took a few steps, then a few more, but
walking
proved impossible.

“I can't, Father. Sorry. Dying. Can't eat what you eat.”

Rizcarn's eyes were dancing flames in a face that blurred and seemed less man-like the longer Bro looked at it.

“A few tree ears?” Rizcarn scoffed, sounding more like the father Bro remembered than he had earlier. “More than a few. You've eaten yourself sick, son, but you're not dying. You can walk it off.”

He leaned on his father a few more steps, then his legs gave out. Rizcarn caught him as he fell.

“Ride, then. Zandilar's Dancer can carry you.”

Bro wasn't too far gone to miss the concession, but the true meaning—if it were more than Rizcarn's belated concern—escaped him. The grass had turned as orange as the sky. Dancer was brilliant blue, except for his eyes, which shone like the sun at sunrise. After Bro tried to explain that everything looked very different, very strange and colorful, Rizcarn brought him more water.

If he weren't already poisoned, Bro was certain he would be if he let the black ooze in Rizcarn's hands touch his lips. Then a luminous green worm wound itself around Rizcarn's thumb. The worm extended its head and opened
a single, blood-streaked eye. Bro staggered backward.

But things got better once Bro was astride Dancer. With his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around the colt's neck, he could let his overheated imagination wander to pleasanter places: springtime meadows around Sulalk, autumn in the Yuirwood he remembered, all the places he'd ever wanted to see from Dancer's back.