Silently she reproved herself for not seeing them right away. So he had taken a beating as well and nearly torn off his tail to come and rescue her. Though she could not, would not, tell him of Ravelle’s manipulation of her mind and how he’d had his way with her—her sense of shame was far too strong—she had to acknowledge that Marius had suffered for her.
The pain of his injuries seemed to be nothing to him, compared to the agony of shifting from one form to another. His indifference to it spoke well for his toughness—she would have to rely on that at the very least. And for now, until she could get away, she had to trust him to lead her out of the unfamiliar forest. Linnea put her hand in his and let him lead her to the huge tree.
Within a few steps of the open door, she glimpsed a chamber that held a finely wrought staircase, spiraling upward until it was lost from sight and supported by nothing at all.
Linnea took a deep breath and entered.
H
e led her inside and indicated that she should go first up the spiral stairs. Linnea hesitated, one hand resting on the curving rail, smooth as silk.
“Are you afraid?” he asked.
“I ought to be. I know nothing of this place or what awaits me.”
“It is a place of healing,” he reassured her again. “And it is inhabited by a very strange being, but I think you will like him. Come along—I will go first if you like.”
She looked at him and then up, up, and up, not seeing where the staircase ended. The perfect whorl of it reminded her of a shell, but there was light up above and the hint of a breeze. It did not end in a closed chamber that would be suffocatingly small.
She called upon her intuition to help her decide. Her nervousness gradually subsided. The inside of the great tree seemed safe somehow, although it was dark. She had never been in one like this. At the moment she fully understood why so many animals found shelter in them. The air in it gave off a healthy smell, like herbs. Besides the staircase there was nothing else in its vast, open heart.
Even so, if he went first, she would be able to escape by running down. Just in case something demonish appeared at the top.
Marius’s smile was warm and without guile. He was still naked. And she—Linnea looked down at the sad remnants of her beautiful gown. She looked violated. That did not seem to have occurred to him, but then, why would it? She ran her fingers through her hair, swiftly taking out the worst of the tangles and a few twigs.
“Ready?” he asked nonchalantly. As if he was taking her to meet an old friend. She glanced once more at the open door, looking at the thicket of green outside and the leaves moving in the dappled sun. Anything could be hiding out there.
She was safer with Marius. And she did need a healer—the single scratch Ravelle had inflicted was aching in her chest.
They reached the top of the staircase in a little while, moving up through the open heart. The sides of the tree were lined with green channels in which liquid rose and fell, pulsing like great veins, splitting off into narrow tributaries.
“How can the tree live if it is hollow?” she asked.
“The inside walls are alive from the ground up. The smallest twig on the highest branch is nourished by those.” He pointed to the veins. “A huge bolt of lightning devoured the center years ago. It was meant for Gideon, the Lord of the Dark, but he dodged it. The tree survived.”
There were occasional openings in the trunk—and she laughed when she saw Esau sitting in one. He cawed at them, looking hopeful.
“May we bring him with us?”
“Of course.” But he looked a little annoyed when the magpie fluttered to her shoulder and not his.
They ascended and at last they reached the source of the mysterious breeze. A very strange being indeed rose to greet them. Presumably male and extremely old to all appearances. His skin seemed to be made of shaggy bark, and his eyes gleamed above the pouches and infinite wrinkles of his face.
“Linnea, this is Quercus.”
The being’s hand clasped hers. It was surprisingly warm—and barky. She could not think of a better word for it. He had large ears that resembled tree mushrooms, and in their crevices were long hairs, the bane of all old creatures, growing in wild profusion.
“Welcome, Linnea. I saw you coming, Marius. You made enough noise to wake the dead.”
“That is because we did not wish to be dead, Quercus. Thank you for taking your sweet time to open the door.”
“No centaur could get up my winding stairs, my boy. No demons either. The spiral is calculated to make their heads spin and fall off.”
“Really?” Marius said.
“Yes, quite gruesome. But effective. Your head will stay on, though. Come along. I was waiting for you to change.”
The tree was higher than Linnea had thought. Judging by the height of the stairs she’d climbed, anyway. One could probably see for miles from its top branches.
As if the barky being had read her mind, he waved them over to a scrying pool mounted in a table of volcanic stone. “I saw you rushing here when you were in the woods. Sit down. You are clearly here for healing and I just happen to have the right herbs for poultices…”
Quercus chattered away, seeming pleased to have visitors, making small talk with Marius. For his part, Marius avoided the subject of precisely why they were so scratched and banged up for the present.
With Esau on her shoulder, adjusting his position with small steps every time she moved, Linnea sat at the edge of the scrying pool, marveling at its clarity.
At the moment it showed a forest very like the one they’d dashed through. There was nothing unusual about the mirrored scene. Finches and other small birds flitted through the undergrowth and beams of sunlight shot radiant light through the greenery, picking out tall trunks.
Yet, studying it a little longer, she felt a sense of menace. Linnea straightened up and looked about the room instead. The magpie on her shoulder flew off and settled on a heavy beam overhead to take another nap. Evidently he’d been here before and had his favorite spots.
The upper chamber of Quercus’s dwelling was lined with shelves holding scrolls in cylindrical cases. One lay unrolled on a table, filled with beautiful drawings of medicinal plants.
“The librarian at Alexandria sent me that,” he remarked. He was carrying two cups of tea on a tray and a corked bottle of something she assumed was stronger stuff. Marius could have it. She was suddenly afraid of the memories wine might set free. Her ordeal at the end had been only seconds long, but thinking of it made her shake.
She picked up the tea and sipped at it, drawing her shredded gown around her body. The tree spirit took no notice of her near-nudity or of Marius’s complete nakedness. In his own shaggy, thick-skinned way, Quercus was naked as well.
Marius uncorked the bottle and poured a dark green, pungent liquid into his tea. He swallowed it down in one go and asked the spirit for more. Quercus obliged.
Marius drank that more slowly, looking curiously at Linnea over the rim. “What did you see in the scrying pool?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Hm.” He studied her thoughtfully.
“There is nothing there but birds and rustling leaves,” she said. “The way we came has closed up.”
He frowned and looked at Quercus. “Do you think the trees are joining ranks to protect us?”
“I couldn’t say. You haven’t told me why you were fleeing, Marius, or what from.”
Marius took a deep breath and let it out. “Ravelle. He is back.”
Quercus cursed in Treeish, a language Linnea didn’t understand. But Marius did.
“Strong words, Querky, coming from you,” he said in mock reproof.
The tree spirit shook his head and scowled. His features, except for his wise eyes, disappeared into infinitely multiplying wrinkles. He sat for some moments lost in thought.
“I had hoped he’d given up,” Quercus said at last. “Why can he not stay within the bounds of the Outer Darkness? The land of the living is not meant for him.”
“He loves power,” Marius said bluntly. “And I and the other lords of the Arcan archipelago will not let him have it.”
“Well and good. But how are we of the Forest Isle to be rid of him?—oh, never mind. It is he who attacked you both, I see, and that is why you have come.”
“He attacked Linnea. Some of the trees attacked me as I ran.”
Quercus raised a mushroomlike eyebrow. “Near here? Which ones?”
“I did not have time to tie a ribbon around them, my friend. We were running for our lives.”
Quercus cleared his throat. “Forgive my digressions. I am neglecting my duty. Which of you wishes to be seen to first?”
Marius nodded in Linnea’s direction.
“You have many more wounds than I,” she protested. “Do not be gallant.”
He ignored her. “Ravelle gave her a scratch.”
Quercus’s face scrunched up with concern. “His claws hold a lethal poison. My lady, you should have told me of this at once. There is a poultice that will draw the foulness out. But you must bare yourself.”
The creature spoke as if she were not nearly naked already, with utmost courtesy but no embarrassment. She moved the torn but still shimmering cloth aside, presenting her breasts unselfconsciously. Marius gave a faint, involuntary sigh of appreciation.
Quercus looked intently at the scratch. “The stain of it is spreading under her skin.”
“Then you must hurry.” Marius’s voice held a note of urgent concern.
Linnea glanced his way with no show of alarm. Since they had entered the enormous oak tree, the burning pain in the scratch had ceased.
“But it feels better,” she said to the spirit.
“That is because the poison in his claws acts variably. One minute it is felt, the next, not at all. The scratch itself is a minor injury but one infinitesimal drop of his filthy juice below the skin and—well, enough said. Let me grind the herbs for a poultice.”
He went quickly to work with a mortar and pestle, throwing in leaves and dried things, mixing it with water and forming a wet mass. His wrinkles had settled into an expression that seemed calm enough.
When he spooned the mixture onto a linen cloth, it dripped through when he lifted it, prepared to put it on her chest. Quercus hesitated, looking again at the remnants of her gown.
“It is ruined,” she hastened to assure him. “If I could burn it—”
“An excellent idea. But you will find no fire inside my tree. Not so much as a spark. Take it off, bundle it, and Marius can set fire to it someplace else.”
She rose and let the gown slip from her shoulders and crumple into a puddle on the floor. Then she sat again, amused by Marius’s discomfiture. It was as her mother had told her when she began to become a woman. To be nearly naked was far more exciting than to be bare.
But the look in his eyes told her that he adored her either way. The worry that shadowed his admiration made her turn quickly to Quercus, who guided her to a long bench. “Please lie down.” Then he nodded toward Marius, as if giving some silent instruction to him. Marius rose and sat at the end of the bench.
When she had stretched out on the bench, Quercus placed the dripping poultice directly upon the scratch. The resinous herbs burned far worse than the scratch and she almost screamed.
“I had not expected it to hurt so. The scratch must be deeper than it seemed upon close examination,” he murmured to Marius. “Soothe her as best you can. My dear, forgive me.”
“Ah!” she cried through clenched teeth. “How long?”
“Until the poison is drawn. See—it bubbles through.”
She lifted her head and looked down. Bubbles had appeared on the linen, breaking one by one. A foul, sulfurous smell filled the air and Quercus ran to an opening in the wall of the chamber and opened shutters made of thickly woven leaves.
The miasma wafted out—but not before she remembered every second of what had happened with Ravelle.
Linnea burst into bitter tears.
That night, encircled in Marius’s arms, she told him everything. His response was to cover her with kisses that were at once chaste and kind. His thoughts of revenge were anything but.
They sat together in the morning. Quercus busied himself with some project of his and left them alone.
“You were going to tell me about the gods—what they did to you,” she said, sipping a restorative tea the healer had made for her. “Was it a punishment?”
“No, I had committed no crime. They did it for sport. My brother and I were stable boys. They took both of us on a whim. My father tried to grab my ankle as I was born aloft but he had to let go. We served for a while as cupbearers in the court of the pantheon.”
“I see.” She called to mind her mother’s stories of the divine ones—they were more quarrelsome than humans and much too fond of having their way. “I did not know you had a brother. Is he—like you?”
“No. Although we could be twins, so strong is the resemblance. But he is not ever a centaur. His name is Darius.”
This aspect of her lover’s life was entirely unexpected. She had no immediate living relatives and those of her father’s kind, the Bovidae, were wont to roam far and wide. Linnea had been alone for much of her young life.
“Does he live on the Forest Isle? I would hate to mistake him for you.”
Marius laughed. “Yes, he does, but he is seldom seen, even by me. And you might confuse us–but he is younger. He serves as a Watcher of the Green. There are many watchers on these islands and some are evil. I can vouch for his character.” He looked her up and down in the torn gown. “You can meet him and judge for yourself, of course. But I might have to dress you in a sack first.”
“If I could be invisible in the eyes of men and demons, I would,” she retorted.
Marius looked chagrined and she reminded herself again that she had told him nothing, even though she suspected he had guessed some of it.
“Darius is a good man.”
“How did he escape the court of the gods?”
“He was first to go,” Marius returned to his story. “A divine factotum dispatched him back to earth on the wings of the old eagle who’d brought him up into the clouds. Then they showed me the amulet and asked me if I wanted it. I was very young but knew enough of their mischief to say no.”