There was a black-rock chasm somewhere near the grove's heart—he'd come upon it from both sides without ever finding a way across. And a rainbow-shrouded waterfall that he'd like to visit again, except that it had taken him three days to find the path out.
Stick to the path, Akashia had snarled when he'd finally returned to Quraite, tired and hungry after that misadventure. Do what she tells you. Don't make trouble for me.
He'd told her about the misty colors and the exhilaration he'd felt when he stood on a rock with the breathtakingly cold water plummeting around him. Foolishly and without asking, he'd taken her hand, wanting to show her the way while it was still fresh in his memory.
Do what you want in Telhami's grove, she'd said, as hateful and bitter as any Urik templar. Wander where you will. Sit under your waterfall and never come back, if you think there's nothing more important to be done. But don't drag me after you. I don't care.
Pavek couldn't remember the waterfall without also remembering Kashi's face contorted with scorn. He'd tried to find his way back, to restore himself in the pure beauty of the place, but he couldn't remember the way. She'd seared the landmarks from his mind.
It wasn't right. His old adversaries in the templarate could have a man's eyes gouged out if he looked at them wrong, but, except for the deadheart interrogators, they left his memories alone.
Another gust of wind struck Pavek's cheek.
"Work, that's what you need, Just-Plain Pavek. Escrissar's havoc isn't all mended yet, not by a long shot. There's a stream not too far from here. He knocked down the trees along its banks; now it's dammed and stagnant. Can't count on anything natural to set it flowing again, not here in the Tablelands. The channel needs to be cleared and the banks need to be shored up."
With one last thought for the waterfall, Pavek followed today's path into the grove. He'd never been one for rebellion. Following orders had kept him alive in Urik; it would keep him alive in Quraite as well.
A little walking on Telhami's path and Pavek came to a place where a mote of Elabon Escrissar's wrath had come to ground beside what been a stand of sweet-nut trees beside a brook. The trees were all down, black with mold, and crawling with maggots. Their trunks had dammed the brook, turning it into a choked, scummy pond. An insect haze hovered above the mottled green water and the stench of rotting meat weighed down the air.
Compared to the other places where Escrissar's malice had struck the grove, this place was healthy and almost serene. There was no danger here, only the hard work of getting the water to flow again. Evidently, Telhami had been saving this particular mess for a day when she thought he needed the kind of distraction only exhaustion could bring. Pavek wondered how many such places she held in reserve, how many he'd need before he could think of Kashi without sinking into his own mire.
Telhami shimmered into sight atop one of the decaying trees. "Get the water flowing. Work with the land rather than against it." Time was that Pavek wouldn't have known what to look for and she would have fed him clues. Now she expected him to resolve messes on his own. He dropped to one knee and surveyed the land with his own squinted eyes. There was nothing he could do for the fallen trees, but he could see the way the stream used to flow and he could get it flowing again.
"Brilliant, Just-Plain Pavek, just-plain brilliant," the shimmering sprite mocked him from her perch. "You'll run out of blood before you run out of bugs!"
Much as Pavek loved the sensations of druid magic flowing through him, druidry might never be the first thought in his mind when he confronted a problem. Feeling foolish, he closed his eyes and pressed his palms into the mud. Quraite's guardian was there, waiting for him.
Elsewhere, Pavek thought, adding the image of another scummy pond that might, or might not, exist somewhere in the grove. The guardian's power rose into Pavek and out of him. It stirred the bugs, gathering them into a buzzing, blurred ribbon of life that abandoned Pavek without resistance or hesitation. Flushed with his own success, Pavek sat down on his heel, sighing as residual power drained back into the land.
Every place had a guardian; that was the foundation of druidry. Every tree, every stone had its spirit. When the Tablelands had teemed with life, the guardians of the land had been lively, too. In the current age of sun-battered and lifeless barrens, druids could still draw upon the land for their power, but except in places like Quraite, where the groves retained a memory of ancient vigor, the guardians they touched were shattered. Those guardians that weren't weak were mad and apt to pass that madness to a druid who associated too closely with them.
Quraite's guardian had no personality of its own that Pavek had been able to discover. Telhami, by her own admission, was only a small aspect of its power and sanity. Pavek suspected that every druid who died in Quraite became part of the guardian, and a few Quraiters who weren't druids as well. He'd sensed another aspect from time to time: Yohan, the dwarven veteran who'd died that day when Escrissar attacked. In life, Akashia had been Yohan's focus, the core of loyalty and purpose all dwarves needed. In death, he still protected her, not as a banshee, but as an aspect of the guardian.
"On your feet, Just-Plain Pavek, or the bugs'll be back before you've moved a stick!"
Pavek got to his feet. Telhami was right, as she usually was. There was nothing to be gained by thinking of the dead who protected Quraite—or Akashia, whom he would personally protect, if she'd let him. After shedding his belt and weapons, Pavek waded into the pond. One afternoon wasn't enough to get the stream flowing swiftly again, but before the sun was sinking into the trees, he'd hauled away enough debris to get water seeping through the dam in several places.
"A little luck," he told the green-skinned spirit on an overhead branch, "and the stream will do the rest of the work for us."
"You're a lazy, lazy man," she replied with approving pride.
The path took an easy route back to the clearing Pavek called home. There was a stream-fed pool for water, a sandy hearth, and a rickety lean-to where he stored the hoe beside his sword. He'd thrown his sweated clothes into the pool and was about to follow them when the leaves on the nearby trees began to shiver and the grass bent low.
"Someone's coming," Telhami said from the rocky rim of the pool.
Pavek bent down and swept his hands through the grass. He cocked his head, listening to the leaves. Telhami knew who was coming and, after another moment of listening, he did as well. "Not someone," he corrected. "Zvain and Ruari."
"Running or walking?"
He touched the grass a second time and answered: "Running."
Ruari had his own grove, as befitted a novice druid. He had trees and shrubs, the familiar wildlife that half-elves always attracted, and a pool of water not much bigger than he was. It certainly wasn't large enough to entertain two energetic youths, since Zvain spent most of his time in Ruari's shadow, having no gift for druid magic.
Pavek wasn't surprised that they were coming to visit him. Half the time they were already in Telhami's pool by the time he returned from the grove's depths. But he was surprised that they were running. The druid groves were only a small part of Quraite, and between the groves the land was blasted by the bloody sun, just like every other place in the Tablelands. Usually, Quraiters walked, like everyone else, unless they had good reason to run. He snagged his shirt before it drifted downstream and started to follow the bending grass toward the verge.