Wind Rider (6 page)

V

I awoke refreshed to find a hand on my shoulder.

It was not Ulrike, but Elias.

I frowned, and Elias seemed to find this highly
amusing.

Ulrike wanted to wake you, but I beat her too
it. You like her don’t you?

I was about to respond, when Elias laughed.
Better
not answer me with your thoughts until you learn to shield your mind. Otherwise
Ulrike and the whole tree will be laughing about you until we leave.

I smiled and spoke instead. “Show me how to shield
my thoughts like you showed me how to pull the energy.”

Images flashed into my head. Elias was showing me
his mind, a bright blue beacon, and around it, broadcasting out, were this
thoughts.
This is how you do it, and why everyone can hear your thoughts.
Everyone who has the ability that is.

Show me how to shield them.

Elias nodded.
This is how you need to do it.
Look.

Again, my vision filled with images of my mind.
This time though, the blue beacon was covered with an orange concentric shell.
One small hole opened up, reaching out to another mind: Elias, looking like
another bright beacon, but purple. And his purple beacon was covered with an
orange shell too, but it opened up to accept my thoughts and let them in.

This is how you send and accept private
thoughts. And this way no one can
scry
into your
mind, and read your mind. Without shielding, someone could read your head even
when you are asleep. We have tried to shield you as best we could, but it is
time for you to shield yourself.
Woltan
and Kara
agree.

Try it now.

I nodded. I imagined my mind, built an orange
shield around it, impenetrable.

I opened my eyes, and Elias was smiling. “You did
it too well! You can’t even hear my thoughts any more. Let some thoughts in,
just don’t let people take anything away you don’t want to share.”

I closed my eyes and reimagined the orange shield.
I imagined myself sensing the thoughts coming in towards me, absorbing them.
Then I imagined having thoughts to send, and sending them directly to someone.
I looked at Elias with my third eye. I sent a thought out toward him, and felt
the shield close again after it went.

How’s this? Can you hear me?

I opened my eyes and looked at Elias.

Elias nodded with a smile.
And now at last no
one else can. One last test. I will try to probe your mind, when you are ready.

Will it hurt?

Elias shook his head.
You may feel like someone
is tapping or knocking you. If I was much stronger or evil, it might hurt a
little bit. You’ll get used to it.

I nodded.
Probe me.

I closed my eyes again and concentrated on the
orange sphere. It felt like someone was poking me, scratching at me, grabbing
at me, squeezing me, but where exactly? Not my head, not my body. It was my
aura that was being probed, my mind and my aura. Elias was still pounding at me
and I felt something that felt like a sharp nail trying to rip into me. I was
tired. I concentrated. I redoubled the shield. I poured energy into it — it
felt like flexing a muscle that hadn’t been used in a very long time. I figured
I would be sore from more than the probing; just closing my mind was tiring.

The probe had faded to a small buzz and to a
tickling sensation.

“Okay,” said Elias. “Anders, you can relax now.”

I opened my eyes.

Elias was smiling.
You need to work on keeping
your eyes open but otherwise that was pretty good. At first your shield was
kind of weak but you really brought it up at the end there. What did you do?

I shrugged.
I don’t know. I just put my will in
it.

Elias nodded.
If you keep practicing, the spell
and the protection will become automatic, and almost permanent. You will be
protected when you sleep. Until then, I think you should reimagine the
protection every hour or so, and whenever you wake up at night.

There was someone else then, there, at what served
as a door. I felt my face flush in recognition, and was glad at least all my
thoughts were not on display. It was Ulrike, and she was smiling at us.

Are you working magic?

Elias smiled.
We’re just about done.

We need to go and eat now, Anders and Elias.
The others are waiting, and there are decisions to be made. My father urges you
with all respect to come at once.
Woltan
sends the
same message. He tried to contact you with his mind but everything bounced off.

She smiled again and I was glad now she couldn’t
read my thoughts, although I was afraid she could read them all too well on my
face.

He found this so alarming that he wanted to
rush over here himself, but my father said I could handle it. Your friend Kara didn’t
look too pleased.

Now I knew my face was red.

“Let’s go,” I said, out loud. My thoughts were so
mixed up now I did not trust myself to send them selectively.

Ulrike may not have understood my words but she
must have understood the message. She nodded and then we were walking out the
door onto the tree, up a few stairs and then into a room that seemed impossibly
large. There were long green tables and green people sitting at them. Everyone
looked up as we entered. I looked around for
Woltan
and the rest of them and did not see them, and then realized I was tuning out
the green people.

Ulrike smiled.
You’re starting to look like us.
Green and transparent. Very handsome. I fear the effect is temporary, however.

Can you read my thoughts?

Just on your face, Anders. Your mind is closed
to me now, except when you direct thoughts my way.

Someone was calling me then. “Anders!” It was
Woltan
, sitting at one of the tables, gesturing at me.
There was Kara as well, and in between us, an empty space.

Ulrike put her hand on my shoulder, and smiled. My
face grew hot, and I imagined she could read that as well. Oh well.
I need
to go sit down.

Ulrike nodded and let her hand drop.

What was she playing at?
I walked over and
sat down between my two friends.
Woltan
was talking
to me. “They can’t understand when we talk, but then again you couldn’t either
when you first came to stay with us. So we must think with our minds, but be
very careful — look at everyone you are talking to, and send only to them.
There are no spies here, and the tree should protect us. But we can’t take any
chances. The dark lord is too powerful and too angry now.”

I nodded. Seated across from me was Ulrike’s
father, looking impatient. I found everyone present with my inner eye, and sent
a message.
Sorry I took so long. My companion Elias was helping me with
something. I beg your pardon.

Boy, that was clever. Helping me with
something
.
But did I really want to tell everyone my weakness in hiding my thoughts?

Erik nodded.
I know you have barely rested, but
the longer you stay here, the more dangerous it is for all of us. We want to
send three of our people, warriors and scouts, with you, and then send a larger
party of several dozen to help you defend your city. More than that we cannot
spare — we must defend the tree, as well. She is our mother: for generations
she has kept us safe and we must return the favor.

She has protected us now as well.
Woltan
smiled.
We will always be in your and her debt.

This seemed to please Erik; he clapped his hands
and suddenly the tables were laden with food. There were pine nuts, of course,
but also all kinds of mushrooms and potatoes, and other vegetables I’d never
seen. The tree people seemed to be vegetarians. There was no meat, and no fish
either. Everything tasted faintly of pine. Perhaps it was the pine nuts. They
were larger than any I had ever seen. They filled me with strange sensations,
and when I looked at myself, I swore I was turning greener and more
transparent. Maybe it was just a trick of the light — it filtered in through
the pine needles around us, and through the green webs of protective energy
that encircled the tree.

Our first gift is the gift of camouflage; with
the food that you eat here, and the time spent with the mother tree, you will
be difficult to see in the best of light, and if you press yourself against a
tree or any other plant, you will be invisible. This will not last forever, of
course, but if you snack on our nuts and other foods, the effect should last
for several days.

Time enough for us to reach our destination. At
least I hoped so.

This invisibility will hide you from the dark
lord as well. He is so corrupt and evil now, so disconnected from nature and
natural magic that anything as green as our tree and your bodies will be just
another tree to him. He should not sense the humanity in you until the effect
wears off.

But my thoughts keep you from your meals. Eat,
now, for strength, and invisibility. And to share one meal with us, with those
who would call you friends, those who would eat with you, fight alongside you,
and if need be, die with you.

I remembered then to chew, remembered the hot food
in front of me. It might well be my only hot food for the next two days. The
storm awaited us outside the trees — cold and gloomy and evil. Suddenly the
freshness of this forest food and the sharp sticky taste of the pine nuts was
exactly what I needed. I tucked in, filled my plate again. We ate, all of us,
in silence. The food was magic, and would protect us. But it was more than that
— it bound us all together and to the mother tree.

I stopped eating for a moment and breathed in
deeply, and felt the fresh pine scent enter my lungs, permeate ever pore of my
body. I felt at home with the tree at last, and deep down inside me I knew what
I had to do. I sighed. For a moment, people stopped eating and looked at me.
Then they were all eating again, quickly, but methodically, honoring every
mouthful with their chewing, breaking it down before it was swallowed.

I turned my inner eye inward as I chewed. The dark
green of the food exploded into a rainbow of color as it entered my body
through my stomach, but also through my mouth, my tongue, my throat. And I
could feel the pine scent sticking to me even more now as I ate, the tree
recognizing me as one of her own and giving me her protection. Soon, I figured
I would be able to understand her thoughts, which rumbled in the background of
my consciousness.

I continued eating in silence, and gradually my
body relaxed. People kept eating around me, but mostly I heard the food inside
me and the mother tree. She was almost ready to greet me. I couldn’t help
smiling in anticipation.

Erik clapped his hands once more and the tables
were cleared, and there were little spice cakes, the size of a child’s hands.
They were sweet, and like everything they tasted of fresh pine.

Erik was looking at me.
No one else has ever
been allowed to stay or eat with us. Our mother tree granted you all this gift,
to help you defeat our common enemy. If you stayed longer, and ate longer of
our food, it would be terribly hard for you to leave us. The tree holds on to
her children. We are her adopted folk, even if our blood runs red still, and
not green.

But I thought you said some of your people
would accompany us?

Erik nodded.
It is grim for them, and so I have
asked for volunteers. We will hear now, who would go, and they will give their
reasons, and we will vote.

With my inner eye I could see Erik’s tendrils of
thought projecting out to everyone in the room. Suddenly all the faces around
me looked very serious.

Who will go with these our adopted kin, who
will fight against the dark lord?

I saw a rainbow of thought and excitement race
through the auras.

Ulrike stood then, and I could not help staring at
her. Now that I was clear and transparent too, I felt a strange kinship to her.
But that wasn’t why I was staring. She was beautiful. I wanted to hold her and
protect her. I wanted her to stay, but I also wanted her to come with us so I
could get to know her. It was very confusing.

Tell us, then, daughter, why you would
accompany them?

I have skills they need. But of course that’s
not everything.
There was a pause, and then her aura flashed red in anger.
Almost
everyone knows here that it was the dark lord who took my mother from us. I
want my vengeance.

Should I not take the same vengeance?

Your place is here, father — the mother tree
needs you, and our people need you too.

Erik slowly sighed, his face resigned.
I will
let you go, and stay for our tree and for our people. But if the dark lord
takes from me now my only daughter after robbing me of my wife, no one, not
even the mother tree, will keep me from seeking my vengeance. For the good of
all, be careful.

Ulrike nodded.

Then I seek the approval of the rest of you —
those I would leave, and those I would follow.

Erik stood up.
Stand then, with me, those who
would let her leave.

The tree folk stood up all in unison. There were
silent tears, but no one was left seated.

They all stood down again.

Stand, now, those who would let her accompany
them.

Woltan
met my gaze, and
Elias too. In a split second, it was Elias who decided for us, sending us a
private thought.
Stand. She is strong and true, and her mind and heart are
set. We cannot hold her back.

We stood as one.