But how Goodtree's parents had ended did not matter. What was important was that with each death she had felt as if she had failed them, and there was too much that she could never say to them now. And yet somehow it still needed to be said.
They were so different! she thought in wonder. How could they have Recognized, and produced me? In theory, the offspring of such a union should have the best characteristics of both parents, or at best, something new. But I can't do anything unusual, thought Goodtree, the easy tears spilling from beneath her eyelids. Until I find my soulname, I don't even understand what every other grown Wolfrider knows! She shifted position on the grass beneath the sun tree as if she were in physical agony.
Mother! Why couldn't I have your courage?
The image of Stormlight came vividly to mind: midnight eyes bright and pale hair sparking wildly, preparing for the hunt as if she was going to war. Goodtree remembered sitting behind her mother on the wolf's back, clinging for dear life as they charged into a herd of branch-horns. She heard once more her mother's yell of triumph as the sharp spear bit, and relived her own terror when the murderous horns grazed her as the beast fell. She had sobbed hysterically all the way back to the hurst, and her parents had argued over it for hours that was a painful memory too.
O my father, why couldn't I have inherited your calm patience?
She remembered the gentle abstraction in Tanner's face, already weathered by the years when she had been born. A lock of brown hair would fall over his eyes when he was workingand he usually was working, always trying to refine the process he had invented to tan the leather the Wolfriders wore. She had wanted to help him, she remembered, so that he would be pleased with her, but the acrid preparations he used had blistered her hands, and the fumes had stung her eyes until she ran away, weeping. He and Stormlight had argued about that, too.
I cried a lot in my cub days, Goodtree thought distastefully, but maybe I had reason. When did I stop being so sensitive, and why?
A chieftain's cub was adopted by everyone in the tribe, and she had certainly never lacked for food or care. But apparently it had not been enough to make up for the sense of separation she felt from the two beings she loved most in the world. She did not know what would have become of her if she had not had Leafchaser.
When Goodtree was small she had been sure that her father was the wisest elf in the tribe, just as her mother was the bravest and the most beautiful. But as she grew older, she had fought with her mother, refusing to hunt with her or learn the craft of the warrior and Stormlight's skills with the stabbing spear. Instead, she had spent long hours alone, practicing with the bow. Her father had tried to talk to her about the craft of the chieftain. Tanner had been old when Goodtree was born, and she understood now that he had suspected how young she would still be when she succeeded him. But she had refused to hear.
But they are both gone now, and I cannot turn back the seasons to seek them! Once more she wept as if her parents lay newly dead before her, but it was the loss of all they should have shared that she was weeping for. They had tried their best to help her, just as she had tried to please them. There was no blame for either them or Goodtreeall they had needed for understanding was time.
But they had not been given it. Where had those bright spirits gone when the flesh failed them? Was the soul extinguished, or did it dissipate like mist before the sun? Or did Tanner and Stormlight live still in some realm where even wolf-senses could not discover them?
Darkness had fallen while she was still retracing the tangled paths of memory. Exhausted, Goodtree fell into a fitful sleep in which her unconscious replayed all the incidents of her cubhood with implacable clarity. Only when the rising sun illuminated the grove with a glow that was almost silvery, as if it were being filtered through clouds, did she awaken, or rather, shift consciousness, for she could scarcely feel her body now.
That was the solution! It was the flesh she wore that prevented her from communicating with Stormlight and Tannershe wondered why she had not understood that before. If she could leave the clumsy thing behind her, perhaps she could catch up with them.
Breathing slowed and grew shallower; sight fixed on the flutter of golden leaves and then lost focus; senses shut down until Goodtree was only a point of awareness hovering in a haze of light. But it was not enough for her to lose herself, however pleasant it might be. What she was seeking lay elsewhere. Her spirit strained like a pup struggling against the birth-caul, and suddenly she felt warmth like the she-wolf's tongue dissolving the last constrictions, and she was free.
**Mother? Father?** Familiar presences flowed comfortingly around her. **Myr ... Lhu ...** Goodtree recognized the two she had known as Tanner and Stormlight.
**We are here ... we have always been with you ... could you not feel our love?**
With that answer, Goodtree received from them a totality of acceptance that healed wounds that had festered in her spirit for far too long. Freed, she sank deeper into the magic, awareness expanding to encompass it. Myr and Lhu were only part of something larger, a multiplicity of glories which she gradually recognized as the essence of the world around her, as real as the physical appearances she had known.
And as she perceived them, Goodtree named them, understanding with that act the inner truth of tree and flower and stone. She knew how the rootlets of the grasses spread through the rich soil, sensed the absorption of nutrients from the earth and the transformation of sunlight into energy, and more deeply, the cell-deep changes that made the plant grow.
But the grasses were only marginally aware. It was far more rewarding to touch the deep enduring life of a tree, its spirit encircled with rings of memory. Now, the tree's upper branches rustled and swayed in the wind, but its trunk recorded its biography. One year had been dry and hard, another so cold that heartwood cracked; lightning had scored a shapely trunk, and the tree was still slowly curling bark over the scar; floods had bared roots and torn branches away. All these things Goodtree remembered, and with them understood the internal patterning that enabled the tree to adjust to trauma and still continue to grow.
Some emptiness within her that no bond with elf or wolf had been able to fill accepted union with the trees and was satisfied. And in that knowledge she understood her own essence at last and named it.
Neme! I am Neme! And this is my true home!
Neme perceived the minimal life-processes of her own body, and understood how its elements would nourish the trees around her when the last tenuous connection between flesh and spirit faded away. Then she would be part of the grove forever. She would never again have to deal with failure or loneliness or fear.
Seeking that union, Neme's spirit quested outward. Beyond the Golden Grove, oak and beech woods whispered the same response to the rising wind. She felt their movement as if she herself were moving, sensed their leaves' adjustment as clouds dimmed the light, knew the strength that rooted them, understood even the layering of soils and the structure of underlying stone.
Ever more widely her spirit expanded. Now she perceived the roots of the mountains, where hidden earth-fires burned still. Awareness identified Acorn and Lionleaper, keeping their patient vigil beside the wolves, and felt them flinch beneath the first stinging drops of rain. Neme sensed how the land folded downward to the pass and without surprise she perceived the Wolfriders camped beside the stream.
The rain fell with a sudden fury, and the elves and wolves scurried for the dubious shelter of the bank. Neme's body was wet now as well, but that did not concern her. She was too fascinated by the way the leaves gave to the pressure of the rain, and the soil absorbed the water that fell.