Ammonite

After the shrieking wirrels and chia birds of Ollfoss, Marghe expected the noise under the canopy to be constant, but even to her enhanced hearing there was very little audible life under the trees.

“There’s always an abundance of life at the edges of places: where forest meets plain, where water meets land,” Thenike said. “Here, the animals are fewer, and more shy.” Marghe glanced around but saw nothing.

“There. On that tree. Halfway up the trunk.” Thenike pointed. “A whist.”

It was long, not much less than a meter, and shaped like one of the ropelike hangings that twined about the trees. Marghe could not tell which way up it should go.

“Touch it,” Thenike said, “if you can.”

It looked as though it might be slow-moving. Marghe inched cautiously toward it, taking care to make as little noise as possible. When she was two strides away, she lifted her arm to reach out.

The whist disappeared.

Marghe touched the trunk uncertainly. Thenike pointed. At the top of the tree hung a new rope, vibrating slowly.

“When I was a child, I spent hours trying to touch a whist, wondering what they’d feel like under my fingers. I never caught one. Never. I don’t know anyone else who has, either. They move too fast.”

Marghe wondered what their prey was, that they had to move so quickly. Or their predator.

They walked on. Marghe, paying more attention now, spotted a strange, scuttling thing that raised its head above the mosslike undergrowth for a moment, flicked its tongue once, and disappeared back to its dry, crackling world. Everywhere there were berries, in greens and earthy reds and bluish black, but all had a milky quality, like neat’s-foot once it was picked.

Toward dark, they stopped for a rest. “The moons will be almost full this evening,” Thenike said as Marghe handed her a handful of dried fruit. “Bright enough to keep walking, if you’ve the energy. Your choice: we could sleep in old Ollfoss tonight, if you like.”

They rested until the moons came up, then set off. After half an hour, the undergrowth began to thin, disappearing in patches here and there. Marghe could sense a breeze coming through the trees from somewhere ahead, and the sound of water, feint but definite.

The clearing, or what had been a clearing, was enormous. It was floored with dark green ting grass instead of the mosslike undergrowth, and the trees were few, scattered here and there. None looked very old. All seemed to have sprung up from the shells of ruined buildings. In the moonlight, the scene looked like an old woodcut washed with silver gilt.

“How long ago was this abandoned?” She fought the urge to whisper.

“Two hundred years ago. Perhaps more. Things grow slowly here.”

In the center of the clearing, the sound of rushing water was loud. Marghe turned her head this way and that, trying to pinpoint the direction. “Where is it?”

Thenike smiled. Her teeth and the whites of her eyes gleamed. In the moonlight, all in monochrome, she looked less like a woman than a creature of polished wood, heartwood exposed for a century and honed by wind and rain to a stylized shape, a symbol. “This way, Amun.”

They walked through the clearing and past a thin stand of trees, toward the sound of water.

“Menalden Pool.”

It was sleek and black in the moonlight. At the western end, water fell endlessly from rock that looked slippery and metaled. Moonlight gave the spray a ghostly quality, and Marghe half expected a nymph to step out from under the sheet of water, singing, wringing her hair.

“This way.” Thenike led her around the foss, to the quiet, northern edge of the pool, where a single tree with outspread branches like an enormous candelabra dipped its roots into the gently lapping water. The journeywoman seemed to look around for something. “Here.” She sat down on a flat rock slightly behind the tree, and to one side, patted it for Marghe to join her, Marghe did, and gasped.

The tree in front of her was alive with light reflected from the water. Light ran like electricity along the underside of its black glossy branches; the tree flickered and shimmered, like a menorah made of fiber optics, a dendrite flashing with nerve impulses. Like lightning.

“I found it the first time I traveled to Ollfoss from North Haven. I was very young. I stayed up half the night, watching it, half dreaming. Every time I make this journey I stop here.”

Marghe nodded, still lost in wonder.

“I think of it as my tree, my levin tree. You’re the first person I’ve ever shown it to.”

Marghe wrapped her arms around Thenike. “You give me so much.”

”I have something else for you.” She reached inside her tunic and untied the belt pouch. “Here.”

It was a suke, with a bas-relief carving on both sides: an ammonite.

“I drew it for Leifin. She carved it, I polished it and drilled the hole.” Marghe touched the silky raised carving. So much love. “Here’s a thong. For your waist or neck.”

Marghe threaded the braided leather through the hole.

“Do you want me to tie it?”

Marghe shook her head. “I’d like to just hold it awhile.”