"I do not think," she said to the Fey's lifted eyebrow, "that—Newmen, as you call us—possess
kest
in the same manner as Fey. It may be that the aura—is all we have. Certainly, I've never known anyone in—on the far side of the
keleigh
—who could use
kest
."
"Fey and Newmen are different," Meripen Vanglelauf said with cool courtesy. "Certainly, it is possible that Newmen have not the skill to manipulate their
kest
—especially if there are no teachers on the other side. For now, however, you have the attention of one who may teach you . . . some few things. However or wherever you may have acquired it, certainly you have accumulated
kest
. Heal your arm."
Becca stared at him in frustration. "It cannot be healed," she said, speaking slowly and distinctly. "I am crippled and have been for years."
He looked bored and a little impatient.
"You are a healer. You have
kest
enough. Do you have the will?"
Her temper broke lose from the bounds she had set upon it.
"Will has nothing to do with it!" she cried. "If it were
will
that would do it, I would have been cured ten thousand times! The muscles were torn, then burned, then ignored.
I am a cripple
, Master Vanglelauf! There is no cure!"
It was, she thought in the midst of her anger, very warm of a sudden. The breeze brought her a taste of smoke and of leaf-burn. Gasping—coughing—she looked 'round. The grass between her and Meripen Vanglelauf was on fire, the flames leaping higher as she stared, horrified.
The Fey snapped a word that slid past her ear, and raised a slim, brown hand. Mist formed in the air, thickening rapidly, until raindrops splashed down upon the flames, quenching them with a hiss.
"I—" Becca began, and darted forward with not a thought for her skirts along the steaming ground, and caught Meripen Vanglelauf's elbow, thinking only to steady him as he staggered—
"Do not touch me!"
He tore away from her, face pale and posture uncertain, but it was neither of those that caused Becca to stare, and to shiver.
The thin rags of his aura had—diminished.
If one's aura was the reflection of the inner fire, she thought wildly, then Meripen Vanglelauf's fires were dangerously low.
"No, please—" She extended her hand. "I—Master—
kest
can be given—as a gift?"
"Yes." His voice was thin, as if he were short of breath.
"Then," Becca said, speaking rapidly, "allow me to make amends. I would replenish what you spent to mend my error."
"No!"
The shout took her to her knees, and when she looked up, Meripen Vanglelauf was gone, vanished—melted into the culdoon, perhaps, or spread out along the wind.
Becca bent her head and struggled not to cry.
"He's ill," she said to the trees.
He is diminished by his sorrows, Gardener. Leave him to his duties now, and come for another lesson on the morrow.
"If we keep on at this rate, my lessons will kill him," she objected, staggering to her feet.
Tomorrow, come again. He will teach you; you will learn.
That had the weight of law behind it, Becca thought, and composed herself as well she might. The fire, she saw, with relief, had not come near his nest. She hoped that the smell of burnt vegetation would not be too unpleasant for him.
"Trees," she said, softly. "Please tell Master Vanglelauf that I will try to be a better student."
Certainly, Gardener
, the Hope Tree made answer.
Go, now.
By the reckonings of his watch and his sleeps, he had been inside this second, larger, prison, a ten day plus three. In that time he had found rock-strewn paths and trees without vigor, lifeless dust basins, streams without flow, and light that neither increased nor diminished.
Several times he had seen footprints in the dust, but their direction was lost on the stone that ridged out of the fundamental mist.
What he had not found was the anchor point at Rishelden Forest, nor yet any significant pool of
kest
nor any clue to the direction and condition of the Vaitura.
Twice, he had nearly convinced himself that the Vaitura no longer existed, that all and everything had been swallowed by the mists. The third time the panic rose, he snapped paper and pen out of the aether and began to draw a map.
The map had grown and was now quite detailed. He had returned willfully to his starting point twice; he made notes of his measurements and compared them, seeking to learn—something that would be of use to him in his extremity.
Everyone knew that there were heroes in the mists. Altimere by no means aspired to that estate. However, it came to him, as he walked and measured and mapped, that it might in fact be of some use to him to locate such a one.
Soon after he had that thought, he found a small stream of what ought to have been spring water. Rather than a cool, fresh odor it held nothing he could smell. Throwing a stone into it produced dull splashes; throwing a very large rock into it produced nothing larger. Finally he dared touch the liquid, which was opaque to his
kest
and held none of the virtue water should know. It very nearly ran around his finger: none of its expected dampness clung to his hand.
There was more geography present now, and as he walked the mist felt thinner. The stream was a convenient path; like a well-mannered stream in the Vaitura there was some room between the banks and the nearest obstructing trees or rocks, as if from time to time a cleansing flow pushed back against things that encroached. He felt a continued disconnect between the world and himself, an oddity . . .
The oddity was that though there were trees and plants, they showed, like the water, none of the normal attributes of
kest
. They seemed to live, and yet they did not. They ought to have been dead, at least, or, in keeping with theory he had himself postulated, subsumed into the
keleigh
. That they were neither was . . . worrisome in a way that nagged at him, but which he could not articulate further.
For the third ward, he asked permission of the abundant mosses carpeting the floor of the sleepy forest, and drew its
kest
, careful not to take more than he could control.
By the time it was done and the ward in place, he was feeling so thin and unsteady that he sat down with his back against a sleepy, ancient pine, and closed his eyes so that he would not have to see the unnatural wood that lay beyond his wards, and acknowledge how inadequate they were.
Who hears me?
he asked, wearily.
I hear you, Ranger
, the unmistakable voice of the elder elitch that called itself the Hope Tree said strongly.
The Gardener asks me to tell you that she will strive to be a better student.
Meri laughed weakly.
She could hardly be a worse one.
Did you learn tree lore all in one day?
the elitch asked.
Nay, and I own that my knowledge remains inadequate. I made no claims to being an apt pupil.
The Gardener expresses her judgment, as a healer, that you are ill, Ranger. Is that so?
He sighed.
Certainly, I am light. If there were another present to take this charge, I would ask the boon. What news, indeed, of those Rangers I had asked of?
There was a pause, long enough for him to nod off, his back warm against the sleepy pine.
They have passed from the memory of trees, Ranger
. The elitch's voice was somber.
Meri sat up, chilled to the core. Passed from memory of trees? But the trees recalled everything! All and each of them, and their actions, good or ill. When their
kest
was spent and they had returned to the elements which had formed them—they lived on, in the memory of the trees.
Elder, how can such a thing be?
The trees remember much, Meripen Vanglelauf, but they cannot remember all
, the elitch said sternly.
The trees do not number those who wander the mists, and the wood that you attempt to ward away from us is beyond our thought entirely.
Meri looked down, trying to order his thoughts. Certainly, it was true—the trees could not recall those who had been taken by the
keleigh
, for if
kest
were never lost, yet it could be transformed. As for the shadow-wood—such a thing was beyond his experience, though it was . . . disquieting to hear that the trees found it so, as well.
Until you walked beneath those strange branches, we had no knowledge of it, save as a void; an absence of trees
, the elitch told him.
An
absence
of trees? Worse and worse, Meri thought, and lay back against the pine again. The pine's sleep was deep, and he was so very tired. There were many more wards to be set. A nap, to recruit his strength and regain his focus . . . A nap would not at all . . . be . . . amiss . . .
"So there you have it," Becca murmured into Rosamunde's ear. "Apparently I need only marshal my will and direct my
kest
to heal my arm. What a fool I have been, Lady Rosamunde, to believe myself forever a cripple!"
Rosamunde snorted and stamped a foot.
"Yes, you are doubtless correct. The study of such matters beyond the Boundary is far different." She sighed and leaned against Rosamunde's warm shoulder.
"I wonder . . ." she murmured. "If
kest
informs all things, including the small plants . . . might it not be possible to—to draw the healing humor directly from the plant?" She chewed her lip. "I think I would very much like to meet a Fey healer," she said. "And certainly I would like to hear why our methods are so much more . . . efficacious here in the Vaitura."
Rosamunde flicked an ear.
"Yes," Becca said, holding her left hand out under the soft nose, revealing the patch of shiny pink skin across her palm. "It's entirely healed. The scar may fade, or it may not—but, truly, it is as good as it needs to be. There is no pain, and I have not lost any . . . more . . . strength or motion."
Rosamunde blew an interrogatory.
"Well, yes, I suppose I might consider it a practicum," Becca said. "And, as you say, if I succeed, many things will be made easier . . ."
The list unrolled before her mind's eye: to be able to cut her own meat, brush her own hair, do up her own buttons, take off her own shoes, tie a bow, bathe . . .
"I wonder . . ." she murmured, stepped away from Rosamunde's side. "I wonder how it might be done . . ."
If it were one of her patients, she thought, she would begin by examining the area, by touch and by sight. She unbuttoned the sleeve as she walked over to the edge of the corral and leaned against the fence. Pushing the sleeve up as far as it would go, she considered the withered member, not as a shameful thing, but as a problem in healing.
Carefully, she ran her fingers up the ruined arm, identifying wasted muscles, and clicked her tongue. It was difficult to believe that anything—even
kest
!—could rescue this, and, yet—Meripen Vanglelauf had been certain that the thing could be done and she must, she supposed, bow to his superior understanding.
So, then.
She braceleted her left wrist with her strong right fingers and closed her eyes, seeking—and finding the pool of molten gold at the base of her spine. No sooner had she identified it, than her blood began to warm. Determinedly, Becca gripped her own wrist, trying to imagine the golden warmth flowing to her fingers and into the ruined muscles.
Heat built; the very air tasted hot, and yet there was no sensation in her ruined arm at all.
Rosamunde screamed.
Becca's eyes flew open, and she echoed the scream, staring at the flames at her feet, greedy tongues licking along the grass.
"Rosamunde!" she cried out. "Run!"
The mare reared, front hooves cutting the hot air, and screamed once more.
Her skirt was smoldering; golden light dripped from her fingertips.
"Stop!" she cried, but the flames she had created no more heeded her command than more mundane fires.
Meripen Vanglelauf had said a word, and raised his hand. Mist had formed, thickened to clouds and rain had fallen, extinguishing the flames she had kindled.
"What was the word?" she cried, but the trees did not answer.
Becca bit her lip, tasting blood, hearing Rosamunde's hooves drumming against the ground.
Defiantly, she raised her hand, thinking of—
reaching for
—the moisture in the tree leaves, and in the grass, and in the trough at the far side of the corral.
Mist swirled 'round her fingers, thickening, darkening into swollen purple. Lighting flashed, gold and crimson, and thunder rolled.
Rain exploded from the roiling clouds, turning the ground in her immediate vicinity into a quagmire, drowning the greedy yellow tongues.
"Enough!" Becca gasped, and folded her fingers closed, breathing in and willfully imagining the molten gold retreating along her veins, pooling at the base of her spine, cooling, cooling.
Cool.
Becca looked around at what she had wrought; the water draining slowly away into the scorched soil, her soaked skirt splattered with mud, and Rosamunde, mincing toward her between the puddles, shaking her head so that her mane slapped the sides of her neck noisily.
Becca sighed and raised her hand to stroke the soft nose. Rosamunde blew emphatically into her ear.
"Yes, I don't doubt at all that I look a fright," Becca sighed—and then laughed. "But, Lady Rosamunde, did you see?
I put it out!
Even without the word! Perhaps I
will
learn to use
kest
! I will be able to protect us all and we need fear nothing—not from Altimere—not even from the Queen!"
"What's that you've got, Vika, a dead one?" The voice was low, gritty, and sounding not particularly interested in a dead one.
Something pointed and damp shoved against Meri's face.
"G'way," he muttered, while what felt like a particularly rough piece of bark scraped his cheek.