Leanâlhâm said not a word.
Cuirin’nên’a left her with Urhkarasiférin’s sister, as the greimasg’äh was not present. There were few words of parting between them other than a promise from Léshil’s mother that those who had killed Grandfather would not be allowed to live.
It meant nothing to Leanâlhâm.
Cuirin’nên’a’s last words were not even to her, but to Urhkarasiférin’s brother.
“I need a bow. Preferably small, but any will do.”
And then ... she was simply gone.
Alone in the night within a strange home that she did not know, the girl called Leanâlhâm chose not to wait for the ancestors to cast her out. Stealing what food she could, she slipped away from the enclave and headed for Ghoivne Ajhâjhe with little notion of what to do when she got there. But in all that she had lost, how fitting that she had taken a name even worse than the one given at her birth....
... To a lost way ... d’shli calhach ... Sheli’câlhad.
Chap watched as Leanâlhâm’s verdant green eyes closed. The girl crumpled down the stairwell’s wall below the aftcastle until he lost sight of her.
He could not fathom what had happened to her in the burial grounds. Somehow, for some unknown reason, his own beloved Lily and Leesil’s mother had made this come about. An innocent, naïve girl had lost everything because of all she did not know ... because of the dissidents and what had happened surrounding Wynn’s journal.
Chapter Eighteen
As Leanâlhâm disappeared down the stairs, Chap, concerned about her and overwhelmed by what he had learned from her memories, started to hurry after her.
“Did you get it back?” Magiere demanded. “Did you get Wynn’s journal before it reached Most Aged Father?”
Chap stalled, waiting on the reply.
“No,” Brot’an answered.
Chap had been distracted for only moments by Leanâlhâm’s memories. He did not think he’d missed much of Brot’an’s story. Much as someone should go after Leanâlhâm, Magiere’s question and Brot’an’s answer held him in place. He needed to hear more.
“What happened when you got to your caste’s settlement?” Leesil asked.
Brot’an closed his eyes. “I started a war.”
He paused for a long moment, and then began to speak again....
If Brot’ân’duivé had known he would not catch the loyalists on foot, he would have headed for the river and taken a barge. For much of the year an anmaglâhk could travel faster overland, so long as he or she did not stop to rest. But in mid – to late spring, when mountain runoff was strongest, river currents became swift, smooth, and strong.
Taking a barge would have been faster, as the living vessels swept along with their small crews rotating both day and night. But Brot’ân’duivé sought to catch his quarry—and the journal—before they reached Crijheäiche. If he did not, the journal would be in Most Aged Father’s hands, so he ran, always checking for tracks.
His quarry remained out of reach all the way to the outskirts of Crijheäiche.
Brot’ân’duivé lingered in the forest outside the settlement. It would gain him little to let his presence here be known—except as a last resort to make his enemies scurry in a hasty frenzy. For the present it was best to stay hidden until he obtained more information.
If Urhkarasiférin had returned here by now, Most Aged Father would know that his prime enemy would come for the journal. In that event, “Father” would keep the journal hidden elsewhere until it was needed, for Brot’ân’duivé would have done no less if they exchanged places.
The small book was important as a tool, rather than for what little it held. Only when the time was right would it be thrown in the faces of the council of elders as proof of the patriarch’s paranoia....
That humans posed a great danger to all an’Cróan.
That Magiere should have never been allowed to live.
And that she, who shared part of a nature with the undead, had sought out and obtained a device likely fashioned by the Ancient Enemy itself.
Brot’ân’duivé could imagine how that worm-in-the-wood of his people would use Wynn Hygeorht’s naïve words to justify more unspeakable acts. For Brot’ân’duivé himself had carried out some of those acts in service to his caste, his people, before he had met Eillean.
Not all of this he regretted, and of what he did regret, most was due to the excess of what Most Aged Father had “requested.” This excess would only become more extreme once the journal was exposed to the council. Already, carefully manipulated wars were spreading in patches throughout the Farlands’ inland and southern reaches.
Brot’ân’duivé slipped from the shadow of one ringed oak to the next, until he reached the rearmost position behind Most Aged Father’s massive oak. There he climbed, working his way through the interlinked branches above, until he gained a clear view of the entrance into Most Aged Father’s massive oak.
Settling there, he watched and waited. Over the following two days, his confusion and suspicion grew.
Few in Crijheäiche ever came or went from the great oak, for the old worm preferred to cultivate his image of mystery. But over those two days, his home was as busy as a workday morning in a port. It was not the number of anmaglâhk who arrived and later left that caused the most concern, but rather who was coming and going.
On the first day, Dänvârfij spent half the morning within Most Aged Father’s home. When she reemerged, another named Rhysís, whom Brot’ân’duivé knew only slightly, came to meet her.
“We will have a team of eleven,” she told him. “Gather supplies for a long trek following our ocean voyage to the central continent. Get started on basic necessities and have them barged up to the coast.”
Brot’ân’duivé remained still among the leaves as Rhysís left. Eleven anmaglâhk were to cross the ocean to the central continent, but to what purpose? He was even more taken aback by the next visitor’s arrival.
Crippled Fréthfâre, once Covârleasa to Most Aged Father, hobbled into the green between the encircling oaks. An attendant followed, always tensely ready should she falter or lose her grip upon her short staff. Fréthfâre entered the tree, left her attendant outside, and did not emerge for the rest of that morning.
With what little Brot’ân’duivé had heard earlier, he wondered of what use she could be.
In midafternoon, an old comrade named Eywodan arrived, followed shortly by the tempestuous young Én’nish—who had recently been cast aside by her jeóin, Urhkarasiférin. How she had first attracted the attention of that greimasg’äh still puzzled Brot’ân’duivé.
Anmaglâhk of various aptitudes continued to appear throughout the next day. Most Aged Father’s sycophant and new Covârleasa, Juan’yâre, busily shuffled them in and out. It was unprecedented, and Brot’ân’duivé’s frustration grew.
He had learned nothing of the journal’s whereabouts, though he suspected all of this activity was connected to it. It was not difficult to reason that Most Aged Father was in a panic. Something more had happened for him to summon such disparate members. What were the connections?
Én’nish could be linked to Léshil, who had killed her betrothed.
Fréthfâre was linked to Magiere, who had crippled her.
Dänvârfij could be linked to Magiere, Léshil, and Chap through her failed mission to intercept and seize the “artifact”—and through the death of Hkuan’duv.
These facts combined with Dänvârfij’s orders to gather supplies for a long journey left Brot’ân’duivé with only one conclusion: Most Aged Father was sending a large team after the artifact. Worse, he had chosen members motivated by personal vengeance.