She had on her white linen. She stepped past Elmo and the Lieutenant and came toward me. Silent joined her. Behind her came One-Eye, Goblin, Tracker, and Toadkiller Dog. Those four still had the dust of the trail upon them.
They had been on the Plain for days. And I had been given no word...
You talk about your trapdoor on your gallows dropping unexpectedly. For fifteen seconds I stood there with my mouth open. Then I asked, “What do we do?” in a soft squeak.
She startled me by taking my hand. “I bet and lost. I don’t know. They’re your people. Bluff. Oh!” Her eyes narrowed. Her stare fixed, became intense. Then a thin smile stretched her lips. “I see.”
“What?”
“Some answers. The shadow of what my husband is about. You have been manipulated more than you know. He anticipated being found out with his weather. Once he had your Raven, he decided to bring your peasant girl to him... Yes. I think... Come.”
My old comrades did not appear hostile, only puzzled.
The circle continued to close.
The Lady caught my hand again, led me to the base of Old Father Tree. She whispered, “Let there be peace between us while you observe. Ancient One. One comes whom you will remember of old.” And to me: “There are many old shadows in the world. Some reach back to the dawn. Not big enough, they seldom draw attention like my husband or the Taken. Soulcatcher had minions who antedated the tree. They were interred with her. I told you I recognized the way those bodies were torn.”
I stood there in the bloody light of the fading sun, baffled all to hell. She might as well have been speaking UchiTelle.
Darling, Silent, One-Eye, and Goblin came right to us. Elmo and the Lieutenant halted within a rock’s throw. But Tracker and Toadkiller Dog sort of melted into the crowd.
“What is going on?” I signed at Darling, obviously frightened.
“That is what we want to find out. We have been getting disjointed, nonsensical reports from the menhirs since Goblin, One-Eye, and Tracker reached the Plain. On one hand, Goblin and One-Eye confirm everything you told me-till you parted ways.”
I glanced at my two friends-and saw no friendship there. Their eyes were cold and glassy. Like somebody else had moved in behind them.
“Company,” Elmo called, without shouting.
A pair of Taken, aboard boat-carpets, cruised some distance away. They came no closer. The Lady’s hand twitched. She controlled herself otherwise. They remained far enough out not to be recognizable.
“More than one pair of hands is stirring this stew,” I said. “Silent, get to the point. Right now you’re scaring the crap out of me.”
He signed, “The rumor is strong in the empire that you have sold out. That you have brought someone high-up here, to assassinate Darling. Maybe even one of the new Taken.”
I could not help grinning. The planters of rumors had not dared tell the whole tale.
The grin convinced Silent. He knew me well. Which, I guess, was why he was watching me.
Darling, too, relaxed. But neither One-Eye nor Goblin softened.
“What’s wrong with these guys, Silent? They look like zombies.”
“They say you sold them out. That Tracker saw you. That if...”
“Bullshit! Where the hell is Tracker? Get that big stupid son-of-a-bitch out here and let him say that to my face!”
The light was weakening. The fat tomato of a sun had slipped behind the hills. Soon it would be dark. I felt a creepy tingle against my back. Was the damned tree going to act up?
Once I thought of him, I sensed an intense interest upon Old Father Tree’s part. Also a sort of dreamy rage coalescing...
Suddenly, menhirs flickered around all over the place, even across the creek where the brush was dense. A dog yelped. Silent signed something to Elmo. I did not catch it because his back was turned. Elmo trotted toward the turmoil.
The menhirs worked our way, forming a wall, herding something... Well! Tracker and Toadkiller Dog. Tracker looked vacuously puzzled. The mutt kept trying to scoot between the menhirs. They would not let him. Our people had to stay light on their feet to keep from getting their toes squashed.
The menhirs pushed Toadkiller Dog and Tracker into the barren circle. The mongrel let out one long, despairing howl, tucked his tail between his legs, and slunk into Tracker’s shadow. They stood about ten feet from Darling.
“Oh, Gods,” the Lady murmured, and squeezed my hand so hard I almost yelled.
The kernel of a change storm exploded in Old Father Tree’s tinkly hair.
It was huge; it was horrible; it was violent. It devoured us all, with such ferocity we could do nothing but endure it. Shapes shifted, ran, changed; yet those nearest Darling stayed exactly the same.
Tracker screamed. Toadkiller Dog unleashed a howl that spread terror like a cancer. And they changed the most, into the identical vile and violent monsters I saw while westward bound.
The Lady shouted something lost in the rage of the storm. But I caught its triumphal note. She did know those shapes.
I stared at her.
She had not changed.
That seemed impossible. This creature about whom I had been silly for fifteen years could not be the real woman.
Toadkiller Dog flung himself into the jaws of the storm, hideous fangs bared, trying to reach the Lady. He knew her, too. He meant to finish her while she was helpless inside the null. Tracker shambled after, just as puzzled as the Tracker that looked human had been.
One of Father Tree’s great branches whipped down. It batted Toadkiller Dog the way a man might bat an attack bunny. Three times Toadkiller Dog gave it the valiant try. Three times he failed. The fourth time, what might have been the grandfather of all lightning bolts met him squarely and hurled him all the way to the creek, where he smouldered and twitched for a minute before rising and howling away into the enemy desert.
At the same time Tracker-beast went for Darling. He gathered her up and headed west. When Toadkiller Dog-beast went out of the game. Tracker got all the attention.
Old Father Tree may not be a god, but when he talks he has the voice. Coral reefs crumbled when he spoke. Everyone outside the barren grabbed their ears and screamed. For us who were closer it was less tormenting.
I do not know what he said. The language was none I knew, and it sounded like none I had ever heard. But it got through to Tracker. He put Darling down and came back, into the teeth of the storm, to stand before the god while that great voice hammered him and violent violet echoed round his misshapen bones. He bowed and did homage to the tree, and then he did change.
The storm died as swiftly as it had began. Everyone collapsed. Even the Lady. But unconsciousness did not come with collapse. By the wan light remaining I saw the circling Taken decide their hour had come. They fell back, gathered velocity, cut a ballistic chord through the null, each loosing four of those thirty-foot spears meant for shattering windwhales. And I sat on the hard ground drooling, hand in hand with their target.
Through sheer will, I guess, the Lady managed to murmur, “They can read the future as well as I.” Which made no sense at the time. “I overlooked that.”
Eight shafts arced down.
Father Tree responded.
Two carpets disintegrated beneath their riders.
The shafts exploded so high that none of their fiery charge reached the ground.
The Taken did, though. They plunged in neat arcs into a dense coral reef east of us. Then the sleepiness came. The last thing I recall was that the glaze had left the three eyes of Goblin and One-Eye.
Forty-Four
The quickening
There were dreams. Endless, horrible dreams. Someday, if I live so long, if I survive what is yet to come, I may record them, for they were the story of a god that is a tree, and of the thing his roots bind...