Taen stood a fair distance from the Red Tree and gazed upon its magnificence. All of Rashemen had made him feel small and insignificant beneath its broad expanse, but here, under the shadow of this ancient tree, the half-elf felt truly insubstantial. Perhaps it was simply that the Red Tree was somehow more real. Regardless, the half-elf knew that he was in the presence of a mystery older, perhaps, than some of the gods. Even dour Roberc sat in reverential silence after they had set up camp. No pipeweed or long pulls from the wineskin-the halfling simply sat, fierce Cavan laying docilely by his side, and looked thoughtfully at the giant tree.
When they had first arrived, all of them had spent a few moments alone with their own thoughts as they stood before the wonder of the Red Tree, though it had been Borovazk at the last who had indicated that they should set up camp a distance from the Red Tree. The site, he had explained, was sacred to the wychlaran, the Rashemi Witches whose mystic power defended the land. Only those steeped in the Vyvadnya, the Mysteries, could safely stay beneath the Red Tree's branches and benefit from its wisdom. Many others had tried, according to the ranger, and those who were fortunate died. The others, he had said sadly, spent the rest of their lives in gibbering madness or else they simply wasted away, their minds shattered beneath the Red Tree's swaying limbs.
The three men unsaddled horses, pitched shelters, and gathered what wood they needed for their small cooking fire, while Marissa wandered deeper into the woods surrounding the Red Tree to prepare for her…
Her what? Taen didn't even know what to call it. Watching the giant elemental riddle that was the Red Tree, he wasn't sure that he would ever know what to call it. Here was a mystery that, like so many other things, went beyond his mastery. He worried about Marissa. For all of her knowledge and faith, she wasn't wychlaran. She was a stranger in this land, foreign, and there was no telling what the powers of Rashemen would do if she dared step foot beneath the tree.
Borovazk didn't seem concerned, and that did much to put his mind at ease. Something had happened at the stream when Marissa had knelt before the spirit of the water, something that obviously went deeper than just the normal paying of respect to the telthor. Ever since then, Borovazk had treated the druid differently. He was soft spoken around her-almost deferential. If the Rashemi ranger did not see any harm in what Marissa was about to do, who was he to gainsay him?
Yet Taen felt uneasy.
The half-elf walked quietly to where the ranger sat carving a piece of thick wood with a bronze-handled knife.
"Borovazk, are you sure that Marissa isn't in any danger?" Taen asked.
The ranger stopped his knife from cutting and looked at Taen. Borovazk's blue eyes gazed deeply into Taen's own. The half-elf grew uncomfortable beneath the weight of that stare, but he would not look away.
"Who can tell?" the ranger said at last. "Borovazk is no Old One; he has no power within to understand the Vyvadnya. Is witch-lore. Deep and dark. Borovazk think that the little one has more than just power within her. If she says her god sent her to the Red Tree, then Borovazk think that her god will protect her, eh. Besides," the Rashemi raised his knife to point back in the direction from which they had just traveled, "you saw what happened at the stream. Even the telthor acknowledge her. Borovazk thinks that the telthor know something we don't."
The ranger got to his feet and gave the half-elf's back a hearty slap. "No more worry, little friend," Borovazk continued. "You and I shall drink some jhuild and make our own witch-lore, eh?"
Taen smiled but said nothing more. Borovazk left to find his ever-full flask of firewine, leaving the half-elf alone with his thoughts. The sun had finally set. Here and there, stars glittered and gleamed in night's dark diadem. Taen stared at them for a moment, those holes in the darkness, and wondered what would happen this night. He wanted to believe the ranger, wanted to put down his fear like a weary soldier wants to put down his blade, but he couldn't. Fear was indeed a blade, and he found it embedded deep within his heart.
Cursing softly to himself, he took up a vantage point where he could keep Marissa in his keen elf sight all night long. Let Borovazk drink himself into insensibility, he would keep watch over the druid.
So he waited-under the dark sheet of night, with the wind in his hair and the soft hiss of leaf-whispers sighing in his ears.
Chapter 8
The Year of Wild Magic
(1372 DR)
Marissa touched the Red Tree.
Her right hand traced the path of deep rivulets and channels in its bark; the stump of her left hand pressed gently against its trunk. The druid had removed her glove as well as the rune-covered gauntlet she wore over the shattered skin and bone of her other arm. She was naked, skin on skin with the ancient tree. Beneath her touch, its bark felt rough-the old wood split by wind and weather and age.
The night breeze ran softly through her hair, sending shivers coursing through Marissa's body. For a few heartbeats, she allowed herself to enjoy the delicious sensation then turned her focus to the task at hand. The druid had spent the remaining light of the day in preparation for this moment, cleansing her body and mind in the clear waters of the vale, readying herself to receive whatever Rillifane had in store for her. She'd sent Rusella to the trees near her companions, and now her mind remained clear, as still as the inner pond her masters in the Circle had asked her to create when she was an initiate in order to focus her attention.
Everything about the Red Tree was magic. From the moment she and her friends had arrived, it loomed in her mind's eye, a presence she could not deny. Nor did she want to. Power emanated from every facet of its roots, trunk, and flaming leaves, and waves of divine energy crested over her, submerging her heart, mind, and will. There was almost something familiar about this power, comforting-it was like, yet unlike, the experience she had when surrounded by her god's aura.
Now, enclosed within the tree's arboreal embrace, Marissa sank deeper into that presence, surrendering the last vestiges of herself. Beneath her fingers, she could sense the slow pulse of the earth-blood flowing in the tree's great veins. Her heartbeat slowed, became that pulse, and beat in rhythm to the ancient song. Her breath deepened, took root in her belly then rooted itself deeper-into soil and rock.
She was changing.
Had changed.
She was ancient as the land and as vast as the world's forests. Hands reached to sky, caught the wind in thin fingers, and drank dew like sweet wine from the evening air. Toes curled and twisted, like a riddle whose answer wound down into the dark heart of the world-until there was only earth and shadow and the silent language of stone.
Taen watched Marissa approach the Red Tree. When she knelt before its trunk, he half expected the thing to come alive and begin speaking. Treants, those great living trees, were not unknown to him, so he waited for the thrumming sound of the deep tree-voice and the shaking of its twisted limbs.
Nothing happened.
Still, Marissa knelt in silence, and he watched her in silence. The night sounds of the vale enveloped him like a blanket. The ghostly flapping of owl wings, the high bark of the hunting fox, and a chorus of nocturnal insects filled the darkness. Amidst it all, he could hear Roberc's light snoring and the soft, tuneless humming of Borovazk as he sang his way through three skins of firewine.